


Only in shattering can the rebuilding begin again

by fandomwolfx



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Pining, Slow Burn, Time Jump, Varchie!Centric, mentions of cheating, minuscule Betty Cooper/ Archie Andrews, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:34:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23860135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomwolfx/pseuds/fandomwolfx
Summary: Betty and Archie stand there and she can feel her words hitting them like cold water, both so ashamed that they can’t speak.She looks at Betty for a second before turning to Archie, waiting for him to finally look her in the eyes when she shrugs and admits “We never would have worked anyway, I’m going to an Ivy league college and you’re staying in Riverdale, we weren’t special enough to last long distance”And with that Veronica turns around, letting Betty and Archie’s last memory of her be her walking away from them, pulling out her phone messaging Jughead and asking if he wants a spontaneous trip to New York.Or, Veronica returns to Riverdale after four years with no money, her only choice to reopen Pop's diner when Archie is hired to help renovate it with her.
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Veronica Lodge, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones, Cheryl Blossom/Toni Topaz
Comments: 42
Kudos: 78





	Only in shattering can the rebuilding begin again

**Author's Note:**

> So I know that nobody particularly wants to read a cheating pic, but I was so mad at canon that I had to write something. Like all long fanfics do, this started off as a Drabble and then the next thing I know it had spiralled to almost 30k. I have truly put my heart and soul into this pic, a lot more than Riverdale deserves honestly and hope that it isn't utter garbage and actually in fact readable, maybe even enjoyable?

Veronica was pacing down the halls of Riverdale High, the graduation gown and hat, weighing her down as the material began to make her feel suffocated. Throwing the stupid hat on the ground, Veronica started tugging at the red robes desperate to get the garment off her and to try and get her breathing back to normal. Everywhere she looked there were memories: photos of the semi formals stuck haphazardly onto a pinboard, faded Carrie posters that were curling at the edges and the janitor’s closet where her and Archie would have their rendezvous when they were supposed to be in study hall. 

Graduation was supposed to be a day where you reminisce and want to remember forever, whereas all veronica wanted to do right now was forget it’s entire existence. 

She felt like she was going to vomit, the images of Betty and Archie kissing shown on the projector to the whole school making her feel like an idiot, completely and utterly humiliated. 

Her heels on the floor are the only sound in the hall, echoing off the walls as she silently cries, until the main door bursts open and two voices can be heard calling after her. 

The two voices of the people she loved the most, the two voices of the people who just betrayed her in a way she never thought possible. 

She thinks about all the time she spent during senior year comforting both of them over their father’s deaths. 

Comforting Archie as he woke up from nightmare’s sobbing into her shoulder as she whispered soothing encouragements in his ear, her silk pajamas constantly soaked and stained with tears. Dropping everything at La Bonne Nuit instantly to race over to Betty’s house to find her trashing their basement after finding any memorabilia of the normal father she had before he turned into a crazed murderer. Would sit with her on the concrete floor as she wrapped up and disinfected her bleeding hands and those half crescent marks she’d leave on her palms as Veronica would reassure her she was not like the blackhood, that Betty Cooper was kind and loyal and honest and most importantly a great friend and girlfriend. 

Yet, when her father was dying those two people decided to kiss each other, that’s the last time Veronica thinks that she has people looking out for her. 

She turns around to see Betty and Archie standing in the middle of the hallway out of breath, she folds her arms and glares at them both waiting for them to give their bullshit explanation, she also revels in the fact that neither of them are able to look her in the eye. 

“V, it was a one time thing, you have to believe us… please” Betty openly cries “Archie loves you not me” 

“You have no fucking right to call me that anymore after what you did” she lets out an indignant laugh “and of course you would try to try and defend him in this situation, how adorable, don’t you have your own boyfriend you should be grovelling to”

Every second this interaction continues she can feel NYC Veronica returning, emotional guard sky high, completely detached to the situation, her only goal to belittle the people in front of her. She’ll be damned if she lets these Judases see her cry, no matter how much pain she’s in on the inside. 

She purses her lips and brings her forefinger to her chin as if she’s trying to think through something, before pointing the finger at them and cocking her head to the side “or should I say ex-boyfriend” and then dramatically whispers “you know after the whole cheating situation.”

Betty clearly falters at this “he erm left before we could get to him” 

“Who could fucking blame him?” she replies, the nonchalant attitude rapidly fading as a waver appears in her voice, she coughs at a futile attempt to cover it.

“Neither of us do, we get that we messed up” Archie chimes 

“Messed up” Veronica replies stoically, her voice may have regained composure, but her body is shaking with fury as she takes a step towards him “the two of you have managed to ruin my life in one foul swoop, the two people who I trusted more than anything have just stabbed me in the back, to the point you’ve made the fucking march of Ides look like a small betrayal”

Archie goes to interrupt again, but if he thought she was any wear near finished he really doesn’t know anything about her. 

“If you two were so desperate to get your hands on each other, why praytell, didn’t you do anything about it sophomore year, or the other 16 years that you’ve been best friends. Instead of clearly pining away whilst in other relationships, you could have saved us all from your melodrama, yearning glancing and secret handholding like we’re in some Jane Austen novel” 

She lets her plan to appear unbothered slip away, letting her tears fall, she wants them to know how much this hurts, if they could feel a fraction of the heartbreak she feels in the form of shame and guilt, then that’s good enough for her. 

She starts with Betty first. 

“Do you know how guilty I felt for kissing him that first night in Riverdale” Veronica confesses wiping the tears from her eyes “You made me feel like utter shit, for kissing a guy that you liked, that you weren’t even dating, when I’d only known you for like 24 hours. And now after 2 years of dating you decide to kiss my boyfriend”

Betty is frantically nodding and exclaiming that she does feel guilty but all she wants to do is smack the pet lip off her face, what the hell is guilt going to fix now?

She’s still pulsating with anger, chest a blotchy red, when Archie takes a step forward, always the savior and trying to diffuse the situation. 

He reaches an arm out, but she flinches away, even more annoyed to find a hurt look on his face at her rejection of his touch. 

“And you'' she points “Do you really think that I’d let you touch me after what you’ve done.You don’t get to comfort me now that we’re no longer together. How do you think I feel wondering if everytime we kissed, or-or had sex that you weren’t thinking of me but of her” Veronica can hear her voice getting louder, echoing off the halls, certain that everyone in the building can hear her words “ I gave you everything Archie. My money, my virginity, my love and the whole time you’re telling me you had feelings for someone else. I feel sick, I hope you both realise this is something that I’m not getting over, betrayal like this can’t just be fixed with a few tears and a half assed apology just because you got caught” 

Betty and Archie stand there and she can feel her words hitting them like cold water, both so ashamed that they can’t speak. 

She looks at Betty for a second before turning to Archie, waiting for him to finally look her in the eyes when she shrugs and admits “We never would have worked anyway, I’m going to an Ivy league college and you’re staying in Riverdale, we weren’t special enough to last long distance”

And with that Veronica turns around, letting Betty and Archie’s last memory of her be her walking away from them, pulling out her phone messaging Jughead and asking if he wants a spontaneous trip to New York. 

*four years later*

*BANK BALANCE= $14.00* 

“Well fuck” 

Veronica Lodge swears that she must be the only person to have ever lived the reverse Erin Brokovich story. She grew up with money, actually went to law school and instead of being given a check of 2 million dollars after all of her hard work, she had pretty much blown a sum much larger than that on the college lifestyle (in particular the partying within a college lifestyle).

Well that was her plan of buying on flight wifi to distract herself from the scratchy economy airplane seat and “blanket” she’s been given gone straight out the very small very plastic window. The things she would do to be back in the Pembroke under her 1200 thread count duvet, 16 years old with all sorts of hundred dollar bubbles only a few feet away in the fridge. Now at 22 years old Veronica is seriously considering spending the last few dollars of her bank account on a shitty gin and tonic so that she can at least be a little bit tipsy when she arrives back in Riverdale for the first time in four years. 

She’s startled out of her thoughts when she sees one of the flight attendants approaching her row .

‘Would you like any refreshments”

She seriously thinks about getting that Gin and Tonic but the thought of having to awkwardly lean over the guy sat next to her and elbow his laptop out of the way to get to it, honestly seems a little desperate especially for a flight that’s only 5 hours. . 

“Oh no, I’m fine thank you” she replies through gritted teeth.

Deciding that it’s probably better to wait until she’s off the plane and can buy two bottles of cheap red wine from an off licence, she spends the rest of the flight from Los Angeles sleeping fitfully not used to being in such close proximity to complete strangers on planes, trying to ignore the brat behind her repeatedly kicking the back of her chair like she’s his personal punching bag- and seriously can someone get this kid therapy? He has serious anger issues. 

By the time she’s finally got through airport security, picked up the honda and gotten herself refamiliarised to road’s she hasn’t driven down in years (she’s pretty bitter that her 17 year old self had a better car than she does now). The sky is practically dusk with only a smattering of dark orange peeking through, and the closer she gets to Riverdale the more the stars manage to break through the dark night sky. She rolls the window down slightly, it might be coming towards the end of September, but Summer is still clearly trying to cling to the air leaving the atmosphere slightly humid. 

She’s expecting to see Pop’s neon lights from a mile away, almost like a beacon finally guiding her home, but the sat-nav is telling her that she’s at the turn in for the diner and all she can see is dark, despite feeling that the sat-nav must have given herself the wrong directions Veronica turns the car anyway and is instantly saddened to find that she was wrong and this shabby almost derelict building she’d pulled up to is actually the infamous Pop Tate’s diner. 

She of course had heard that Pop had unfortunately passed away around a year ago but she had always imagined Pop’s to be a sort of timeless place like Tiffany’s or the Upper East side distinctly not modern but classic - a place that age couldn’t touch or corrupt. Clearly she was incorrect. 

When Hiram had died towards the end of her senior year all Veronica was left with was a lump of cash (which was now sitting in various night club cashiers throughout the country) and the deed’s to Pop’s diners, basically leaving the diner her only source of income for the foreseeable future.

It takes her a few minutes to jumble the key in the lock, and even when the door is unlocked it takes all of her body weight to finally prize the door open. The interior hadn’t changed at all since the last time Veronica was in here, which truly didn’t surprise her, Pop’s hadn’t redecorated since the diner was first open. Veronica was pretty sure. The only difference being that now the tabletops were covered in layers of dust. La Bonne Nuit however, was ten times worse. The air was stuffy and she presumed that she was the last person to step in here nearly half a decade ago. With a sigh and a swig from her bottle she manages to force open the door to her office at the back, luckily the only room with a window. She let the room breathe and ventilate for ten minutes before she drags out the old blow up mattress she kept in there, lying on her back, looking up at the cobwebs on the ceiling, she made a vow to herself that she was going to restore the diner to its former glory and desperately tried to forget who she was with the last time she was sleeping on this mattress. 

Veronica woke up at an ungodly hour the next morning, and realised that the last time she was up this early was probably when Archie used to wake her accidentally to let Vegas out or go on a run. She quickly banished the hazy image of morning kisses and sex from her mind and decided to get started on finding someone who can help her fix the diner or at least renovate it. Legs swinging from the barstool due to nerves, she anxiously scrolled through her contact list, praying to whatever deity was up there that she still had the name saved after all this time before finally landing on it. 

She calls the number and waits as it continues to ring and ring for what seems like an eternity, it gets to the point where she’s convinced that they’re not going to answer - because really she’s sure that most of her ex classmates have better things to do than converse with people they last considered a friend approximately four years ago. Plus, despite ringing them up to wish them well on the holidays, the last time they had a real talk person to person it was pretty explosive, all school girl catty insults and broken hearts. She’s already deep in her trip down memory lane (a twisted and dark lane at that) when someone finally picks up the phone. 

“Hey… Is this still kev’s number?” she says, hating the anxiety that she can hear in her voice

“Veronica! Out of all the gin joints in town” She truly never understood how Kevin could sound so enthusiastic, no matter what time of the day. 

She can’t help but smile at his comment, he always knew that classic movies and Casablanca were always the way straight to her heart. 

“Nice to hear from you too Kev” she replies trying to be courtly but not being able to stop the rise in intonation in her voice, something about talking to Kevin just brings out the devilish side in her.

“I mean don’t get me wrong Veronica I love hearing your voice but we only really talk on the phone when it’s an occasion or more news on who Timothee Chalamet is dating”

She desperately wants to tell him that she would love to sit and discuss this year's Met Gala theme or the newest Broadway scandal or basically any other piece of menial and shallow piece of celebrity gossip with him - but she just can’t be friends with him like that anymore. 

Apart from Betty, Kevin was probably Veronica’s best friend but when senior year came around and Kevin started spouting his belief that “Barchie” was destined to be together and was Riverdale’s best love story since Tom Keller and Sierra Mccoy, she felt betrayed and also like their whole friendship was based on lies. He literally held her whilst she bawled over Archie leaving during junior year and all the while he was probably plotting how him leaving Riverdale could end in his proposal to Betty- or at least that’s how she felt. It also occurred to her in this instance that the only friendship of hers that wasn’t destroyed by one ginger Judas happened to be that of hers and Jughead Jones, Veronica abandoned this train of thought almost immediately because her talking earnestly about Jughead meant she was seriously spiralling. 

“Well I was actually calling you because I was wondering if you would be able to help me out with-” Veronica starts. 

Kevin cuts her off “Anything V, surely you know that by now”

“Honestly, it’s nothing huge I was just wondering if you knew any construction teams to help me with this project- I heard you live in Greendale now with Fang’s”

“Holy shit are you back in Riverdale? Not the point. Anyway I know this great company they helped redo the whole of the Bon Appetit test kitchen last year” 

Of course he does.

“I was actually wondering if you knew anyone who would work within a relatively small budget” she says slowly biting her lip. Veronica was raised on ideas of status and power, so to ring a friend asking for budget friendly help took a bit more of a hit to her ego than she honestly would like to admit. 

Kevin doesn’t speak for a few seconds and Veronica is pretty sure that he’s so shocked that she doesn’t have any money that he’s just going to hang up the phone. 

“Actually” he starts “I think I have the perfect guy for the job”

Veronica hangs up the phone promising Kevin free milkshakes for life when she finally gets the diner up and running again - or at least a discount.

Over the next few days Veronica spent countless hours disinfecting and cleaning the diner before the construction team starts work the following week. She made sure to pay extra attention scrubbing all of the surfaces her and Archie would have their little trysts at, and she has to tell herself that the sweat she breaks out in is due to the physical exhaustion, and nothing to do with the emotional turmoil it causes her. 

Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to give the same amount of attention to the booth that her, Betty, Archie and Jughead used to sit at. Sharing milkshakes and playing footsie with Archie under the table that Betty and Jughead would pretend to ignore, but would bring up the next day in the student lounge laughing at the fact they could never keep their hands off each other - it wouldn’t help that she was probably sat in his lap at this point or lying across him whilst playing with his fingers whilst they brought the issue up.

She acts as if scrubbing away the grime would rub away all of the memories, all of the hard gruelling lessons she learned at Riverdale, all of the trauma that as horrible as it was made her a better person, changed her from the cold unfeeling ice Queen to an 18 year old girl who had her heart shattered by the people she trusted the most. 

She was busy furiously scrubbing the bar at La Bonne Nuit (tryst place no.1) to the point where the varnish had started to leave little indents on her unmanicured hands when the bell of Pop’s started to chime indicating that the lead construction guy had turned up to discuss plans. 

Brushing the chips of her skirt Veronica hurried up the stairs waiting to greet the man hoping that it was some beefy young Marlin Brando circa “A Streetcar Named Desire” type. Yet, when she entered the diner and saw the man sat at the booth humming and tapping some distantly familiar rhythm on the grimy table top, Veronica's whole body erupted into goosebumps and not because of her instant attraction to the person in front of her. 

She must have stared at him for a solid half a minute before she finally opened her mouth. 

“Fuck you Andrews.” yeah that adequately sums up her feelings she thought. 

It startled her how he simultaneously looked like her Archie Andrews: carrot top hair, that cute little dent between his eyebrows that she loved to press chaste kisses too and hazel eyes just a shade lighter than her own. But how he had also aged too, he seemed tanner now a more olive complexion, she could see the start of a five o clock shadow growing and she was almost jubilant to see that he’d had that ridiculous serpent tattoo removed (God knows how he’d afforded that) she was tempted to ask who’d done it because she could do with the Pablo Neruda lyrics she’d had tattooed during freshman year of college erased after doing an intro to poetry class, but who was she kidding she couldn’t afford it either . 

“Is it weird for me to make the joke of asking how the onion rings are here?” 

What the fuck was he on about. 

She was fucking furious, she had uprooted herself from California to start a new drama free life, and the first person she bumps into, hell, the person she hired to take control over the business that was going to decide the outcome of her new life was none other than Archibald Andrews. 

“What the hell do onion rings have to do with anything?” she stutters desperately and probably failing to hide the shrillness in her voice, the only thing confusing her more than him asking about onion rings is the disappointment that flitters across his face and then the hurt that resides there afterwards. 

“Guess it doesn’t matter” he croaks before continuing “did Kevin… did Kevin not tell you that I was the guy going to be doing the renovation, because I swear down Ro- Veronica if I knew you weren’t on board with this I wouldn’t have agreed” 

She pretends not to notice the redness on his face when he nearly slips up and calls her Ronnie.

“Why the hell did you agree in the first place, why are you working in construction anyway you hated working for your Dad’s business when we were teenagers. You- you honest to God once compared it to listening to Jughead compare the differences between the novel and film versions of American Psycho”. 

It didn’t occur to Veronica, until this very moment that it might not have just been Archie’s physical appearance that had changed, but his personality too. Hell she’d definitely changed, or regressed since senior year in the personality department, for all she knows he could love construction work now like she loves a glass of Moet. 

“Well, when you left after senior year and pulled all of the fundings for the REC centre this became my only source of income and it’s honestly not going to well - I don’t really have the choice to reject the job Veronica”

She doesn’t miss the way he almost hisses her name, and very quickly decides that this is so much worse than him deciding he suddenly loves construction work. She’s so pissed off that he now has a reason to be pissed at her, she should be the one furious at him for shattering her heart four years ago, for spending two years breaking down her walls to then cheat on her with her best friend and causing her to rebuild those said walls higher than the penthouse she used to have at the Waldorf in New York. 

But most of all she hates that she’s caused him any harm, when she left Riverdale after senior graduation she meant what she said to him. She wanted, needed, him to lead a great and passionate and perfect life so that she could justify leaving him, leaving them. Whether that be pursuing music, engaged to Betty, visiting Grundy’s grave every sunday she truly didn’t care as long as he was living a better life than what she could give him. Clearly she’d once again managed to make it worse. 

“Well I guess we're at a sort of perverse mexican standoff then. I nee- require your efforts and you require mine, so I guess we’ll just have to work together as friends” 

Veronica is very aware that the last time her and Archie decided to be friends in any capacity it ended in them going to prom together, she is also aware that being friends didn’t exactly work for Harry and Sally either despite their valiant efforts either.

“I mean really we both owe it to Pop’s, we can’t let it die in vain, plus Betty will be stoked that she can finally get her hands on another of his famous vanilla milkshakes” 

She recognises that this is his attempt at trying to add some levity to the conversation but: 

1\. Does he really think that she would let that two timing Kristen stewart circa 2011 enter her business?  
2\. The fact that his and Betty’s relationship managed to not only last, but exist longer than hers and Archie’s ever did, only solidifies her belief that she was always just an obstacle for Betty and Archie’s road to endgame and happiness - romantic visions from Fred Andrews about proposals and weddings be damned. 

“Oh, so you and Betty are still together, I guess I’ll be seeing B around the place then” she hates the way she has to physically stop herself from gagging when calling cheater extraordinaire Betty Cooper a term of endearment again and the way her voice raises an entire octave, bordering on shrill. 

“Anyway, how are the modern day best friends to lovers Lizzie and Gordo doing” she asks hoping her voice comes off in a casual manner 

“We’re not together” he says cutting her off “ We haven’t been since the end of summer before freshman year of college” 

She has to hold her tongue to stop the smug smirk at her face appearing at the fact their relationship lasted less than it took her to watch killing eve. 

“ We just still keep in touch, it's kind of difficult not to when she’s the only one who comes back for the holiday’s. We haven't spoken in about three months or so now though…” 

he takes a deep and stuttery sigh almost like it pains him to continue, she realises it probably does pain him. 

“Do you still talk to Jug, I mean the last time I saw him was when you were both in your car leaving for New York”

This time she cuts him off. “No, no I don’t” she knows she shouldn’t say this next part but she can’t help herself, she wants her words to sting him just like his admitting that he still talks to Betty did to her. 

“The last time I saw Jughead Jones was two weeks after graduation in a hotel room in NYC after one too many of my Jalapeno Margaritas, buckling up his trousers pulling one of his infamous wife beaters over his beanie and slamming the door behind me leaving me by myself in the bed… God, sleeping with Jughead is truly something I thought I would only see in an episode of his beloved Twilight zone” she throws a haughtily laugh at the end for good measure, like this revelation she’s just revealed should mean nothing. 

Like she expected, the fact her and Jughead slept together definitely hurt his feelings, what she didn’t expect was that stoic look to appear on his face that he used to get when thinking of getting revenge on the black hood, what she doesn’t expect is how much she hates being the cause of that look on his face, what she doesn’t expect is him getting up from the booth storming past her and slamming the door in the process before driving off. 

It’s half an hour later when she gets the email from “Andrews Construction” stating that they’re no longer interested in the project but thank you for the consideration. 

She immediately throws her phone against one of the windows causing it to splinter the entire window pane, leaving her staring blankly at the destruction it made and her own distorted reflection. 

Veronica is standing outside of the only club in riverdale feeling a little pathetic amongst the groups of high schoolers, who are obviously under the age of 21. Earlier on she tried to distract herself from Archie storming out of Pop’s by diving into sorting her finances out. Now that she had deep cleaned the diner - Mrs.Hinch and Marie Kondo would truly be proud- she realised that there was a lot less work that actually needed doing and with the monthly inheritance from her mother she could probably afford to move out of the diner and into a Bed and Breakfast as well as a few nights out. She was working out whether she could afford a night of champagne and Don Julio or whether she’d be stuck with Vodka Cokes when a flash of red hair and red attire to match came into her peripheral vision. 

“Cheryl!” she shouts to no avail. 

“Hey” she shouts a bit louder this time starting to draw the attention of some of the high schoolers, she tries one more time before the woman finally turns around, and she was right, standing in front of her is none-other than the Cheryl Blossom. 

“Well, well, well” Cheryl drawls, tongue curling around the last letter at the end of the word, Veronica can tell Cheryl is looking her up and down even with the metres distance between them.

Cheryl began to slowly make her way towards Veronica, the gaggle of people separating in her wake as if she was Moses. Even for Cheryl this level of attention is impressive, she’s even more impressed when she looks up to see the sign of the club read “The Maple Leaf” and it dawns on her that she is standing in a queue with a bunch of 18 year old’s trying to get into Cheryl’s club. Truly a new low. 

“I can not believe that You have finally gifted the remaining troglodytes of Riverdale with your presence and failed to let the only resident with brain cells and style know? I am truly ashamed Veronica, I would’ve rolled out the red carpet and a plate of Oysters if I knew you were visiting”

Well, at least some things in Riverdale never change. 

“I am flattered by your offer Cher, but I don’t think I would be able to afford a plate of oysters these days, I can hardly afford a pack of cupcakes from Magnolia anymore” 

she can’t believe that she just admitted to Cheryl Blossom of all people that she’s having money problems. If this was sophomore year Cheryl would have had Veronica's head on a platter, nevermind oysters, and completely ostracised her from the rest of the vixens. 

The 23 year old Cheryl Blossom however tucks a stray piece of hair behind Veronica’s ear, loops arms with her and drags her towards the entrance of the club as the sea of people once again part. 

“Do not fear ma cherie, tonight you will not have to spend a single one of your pretty pennies as Cheryl Blossom will be your personal sugar daddy and treat you until your heart is contempt” 

“Oh yeah, I’m sure Toni would be overjoyed about you having a sugar baby” Veronica states rolling her eyes at Cheryl’s dramatic flourishes when it comes to saying, well, anything. 

Cheryl goes suddenly silent as she guides Veronica to an empty red vinyl booth behind a crimson velvet rope as Veronica seriously struggles to comprehend all the different colours of red her eyes are being assaulted with. She’s also suddenly very glad she went with the deep V black dress instead of something that would have very clearly clashed with the decor of the place. 

Cheryl hands her a shot of something that burns as it goes down her throat but instead of wincing, Veronica merely waves her hand to one of the bar staff clearly indicating that she would like another of whatever she’s just had. She’s about to ask Cheryl what the club's stance on jingle jangle is but is interrupted by the exasperated sigh that leaves Cheryl's mouth once she finishes her own drink and takes a cherry stem out between her teeth.

“Unfortunately” she takes another long pause “ me and TT are no longer” she stops to glance at Veronica's reaction before continuing “ I know, I know, it’s such a shock. I mean everyone expected you and Archie and cousin Betty and that insipid cynic Jughead to crumble. But me and Toni - I think everyone would agree we were for the ages”

Veronica was going to pursue further when yet another bouncer came through an entryway adorned with fake vines to whisper something in Cheryl’s ear that clearly was not big enough of an issue for Cheryl to want to deal with. 

‘Okay whatever you Idris Elba knock off, get Toni to deal with it, do those ridiculous ray-bans you bouncers insist on wearing make you completely blind? Or are you just stupid enough to not realise that I have company tonight? Is that all? Okay. Toodles” 

Either those shots that Cheryl gave Veronica were way stronger than she originally thought and Veronica’s completely wasted, or the 90’s club music that Cheryl insists on playing is obscuring her hearing because Veronica swears down on her last pair of red bottoms that Cheryl just told Toni to deal with the situation.

“I thought you and Toni broke up” she slurs, originally aiming for something more subtle but the alcohol has clearly already reached her head as the question leaves her mouth with little to no thought.

“We did”. Cheryl shouts as she grabs Veronica’s Arm and guides her through the crowd and to the front of the bar (also adorned with fake plants). “But it’s a recent thing, we opened this business together, and if you think that’s scandalous, wait until you find out we still live together in thislehouse.” she stops for a second to turn around and look Veronica right in the eye “ I mean really the Blossom households have dealt with murderers, incest and brothels living under their twisted vines, I think an ex pair of sapphics living their is hardly an issue of concern or out of the ordinary.

They do a few rounds of shots at the bar before Cheryl once again drags them through the sweaty teens right into the middle of the dance floor.

Veronica’s pretty wasted, Cheryl has clearly worked on her alcohol tolerance since they were teens, and Veronica is beginning to finally realize that red is definitely Cheryl’s colour. Her copper hair is being enhanced by all the red flickering lights that pass over her and her pale, porcelain skin seems to glow in the rest of the dark and seedy atmosphere of the club. Veronica’s eyes focus in on Cheryl’s lips perfectly painted in the same red as it was in high school - and honestly, Veronica can’t lie she’s always had a thing for redheads, so she leans in to press her lips to Cheryl’s and is surprised to find that Cheryl is contempt at kissing her back.

She kisses Cheryl for a few minutes, and it's good, like really good, but the red of Cheryl is starting to blend with the cherry red of the decor and the dark merlot of the lighting, she desperately tries to focus on the taste of Cheryl's lip gloss but the next thing she knows she’s stumbling and Cheryl has to catch her before she falls head first onto the sticky floor of the club that is looking more comfortable by the minute.

“Okay Sappho, I think I’ve rocked your world enough for tonight let’s get you sat down somewhere before you quite literally fall head over heels pour moi”. 

Cheryl, sits Veronica down next to a stage clearly set up for live performers and even in her inebriated state Veronica’s mind takes her back to “The Archie’s” first and last performance at La Bonne Nuit. When even back in the moment at 18 years old she realized she couldn’t quite catch Archie’s eyes even as she was stood right next to him, and it wasn’t until a month or two later that she found out why.

“You know” she starts, unsure if she’s sober enough to even finish the sentence she’s starting “ I am surprised that there’s a stage in Riverdale where Archie Andrews is not singing some sad and pessimistic acoustic song” 

“Yeah well stuff like that doesn’t happen anymore … Archie hasn’t so much as picked up a guitar in years, he gave them all to me and Toni and said to teach Juniper and Dagwood how to use them” Cheryl admits her eyes scanning the club clearly looking for someone in particular.

Veronica's edges begin to go black as Cheryl absentmindedly strokes her hair and the last thought she has before completely blacking out is that maybe it meant something that she found Archie humming to himself and tapping a rhythm on the table in her diner this morning. 

She wakes up in the morning in a bed that she doesn’t recognize with a killer headache, and is not so proud to admit this has become a common occurrence throughout the past few years. She almost cries in relief when she sees that someone has left a bottle of water and an Advil at the bedside table. The black satin duvet she finds herself under as well as the red interior design throughout the rest of the room is so gothic that Mary Shelley would probably be intimidated by it, and the bedpost looks like it comes straight from Shirley Jackson’s house. This quickly makes her realise that she is most likely at Thistlehouse, and that Cheryl dragged her here after she had blacked out at The Maple Leaf. 

She sees that the grandfather clock in the corner reads 7 am and decides that it’s probably better to leave without waking Cheryl. She leaves a note stating that as soon as she can afford a box of magnolia cupcakes she is sending one in Cheryl’s direction, takes the lipstick out of her bra and reapplies it before signing the letter with a lipstick kiss stain and tries to discreetly leave the house despite all of the wooden floorboards and creaky, heavy doors. 

Walking down the streets of riverdale wearing last nights little black dress, heels in hand and probably still smelling of alcohol, Veronica yearns for the days she had Smithers ready at her beck and call to chauffeur her around the place, memories of Jugheads 16th birthday and her rendezvous with Archie spring to her mind before she quickly tries to quash them and distracts herself by pulling out her phone with the intention of texting Cheryl to see whether she got the note.

Instead when she unlocks the phone she is greeted with her recent calls list, with the very top one placed at 3:30 AM being to of course, Archie Andrews. She didn’t even have his phone number last night, so the fact that she probably had to beg Cheryl for it makes the situation ten times worse, what makes it approximately a hundred times worse is the fact that she has no idea what she said on the call, or if he even answered and she left a voicemail instead.

As rom-com cliche as it was, the first thing she did back at the diner was splash cold water in her face, hoping that as she washed away last night's makeup that all embarrassing calls to Ex lovers would be washed away with it. 

Still in last night's dress and no shoes (but fresh face and hair at least) she pondered around the upstairs diner desperately trying to think how she could renovate it with no help, she could repaint everything at the least and maybe buy new booths and rip out the old ones at the most? 

It’s at this point that she also really wishes that the windows still had blinds, because all of the natural light is really not helping her hangover.

She was busy inspecting the structural integrity of the tables and how easy they would be to deconstruct when the diner door opening and slamming makes her jump and whir around ready to snap at the middle aged person who’s probably walked in to tell her stories about their golden years and youth, where Pop’s was the number one location. 

Instead she is met with the face of Archie Andrews for the second time in 24 hours, when the last time before that was over four years ago. 

Now that he’s actually stood in front of her, and not hidden behind some booth, not willing to look her in the eyes she gets to see a better look at him and is shocked to see that he has actually changed more than she originally thought yesterday.

He seems to have grown into his muscles if that’s possible. Instead of looking like a boy who worships protein shakes like it’s the holy water, he’s rounded out a bit, still muscular, but not as sharp and angular. She also realises that he must have had another growth spurt in college because even without heels there was no way that their height difference was ever this big between them as teenagers, the distance between them was never this large as teenagers either. 

What hasn’t changed however, was his style (or lack of one thereof) battered chucks, a pair of jeans that she’s sure are either the same make he had in high school or the actual pair he wore in high school, and a dark maroon henley that clings to the defined muscles of his arms and abs. 

It’s Archie’s awkward cough that snaps her out of ogling him.

He’s scratching the back of his head when he finally speaks. 

“That’s a … urm… pretty fancy dress for a saturday morning, even for you Veronica” he says genuinely confused, which astonishes her, he clearly knows that she went out yesterday considering she drunk dialled him.

“It’s obviously what I wore last night” she spits, folding her arms over her chest in the process. She can’t lie she feels vulnerable and a little naked standing in front of him wearing nothing but a deep neckline dress that only just covers her ass, which she knows is ridiculous considering she’s wore way less in front of him in the past, and way sexier too, her favorite being that black corset she wore when telling him that she would support Fred in his mayor campaign. 

But that was then. This is now. 

She’s looking down at the tiled floor when she asks him if he answered her phone call. 

“No it went to voicemail” he pinches his nose before continuing “but you were right in what you said Veronica” 

She takes a long time to gather the courage to look him in the face when she asks “Not that I disagree with drunk Veronica, but what exactly did I accuse you of, my memory is starting to look a bit like the sequel to memento if I am being honest” she started to say so with her jaw clenched and head held up high, but by the end of the sentence she can feel a small smile making its way to her mouth. 

He laughs at that, and she honest to God can not remember the last time she heard him laugh, and is frustrated to find that she would do anything to make him laugh again. He also lets his head turn, line of vision coming in contact with the smashed window. He gives it a funny look as if he realises that it wasn’t there yesterday. She’s grateful he doesn’t comment on it though. 

“You called me an ass” 

Now she’s the one laughing. 

“I have a feeling that drunk me called you a lot more and a lot worse than an ass last night Archie, no need to spare my feelings” 

He has that impish boyish smirk on his face when he responds “A gentleman never tells Veronica, surely you of all people are aware of that” 

She hopes the eye roll she gives him indicates that she does not believe that he could ever be a gentleman, but feels like she might have said the wrong thing when his face falls. 

“And… and you also said that I owed you, that after everything you did for me whether it be emotional or financial support that I at least owed you to fix the diner” 

She doesn’t know what to say, because technically she’s right, but she also knows what financial support her drunk self was insinuating and she can’t believe that she would bring something like that up in a drunk phone call. So instead she lets her eyes wander from his face back to the floor again and starts playing with the ends of her hair hoping that her physical response to what he’s saying showcases the guilt she feels. 

“I mean we’d been dating for like six months and you gave me over one hundred thousand dollars for my Dad’s medical -“ 

She cuts him off “that wasn’t charity Archie, I would’ve helped Fred no matter what, okay. I didn’t give you that money because we were dating or as a loan that I wanted repaid, I gave that money to your family because he was a good man and he didn’t deserve to live a life full of medical bills and debt” 

She wants to continue about the lengths she would have gone to, to ensure that Mr. Andrews lived a happy prosperous life because God knows he was the only man in her life (including his son) that never betrayed her trust, but her voice begins to wobble on “bills” and to her absolute horror Archie takes a step towards her and reaches his arm out, she finally lets a breathe out when he drops his arm just before it reaches her shoulder. Knowing that his touch would only bring her more pain than comfort. 

“Veronica…” he says her name so earnestly, reverentially that she’s ashamed to feel herself go weak at the knees “I know you didn’t give me that money as a loan or something to hold over my head okay ?” 

It takes her a Herculean effort to nod in agreement, to do anything else but focus on his face as he speaks and takes another few steps forward.

“ just like if you let me help you fix the diner I wouldn’t hold it over yours, you had the facilities to help me and my dad with medical bills and now I have the facilities to help you fix pops” she’s surprised to hear anger creeping into his voice as he says “for once in your life Veronica let somebody help you” 

They’re extremely close now, Veronica is sure that If she moved her face a fraction of an inch forward they’d be sharing breath and if she took a small step their chests would be touching. Which is the exact reason why she carefully takes a step backward and holds out her hand in a polite gesture, like one you would give to a business partner and not a former lover.

She clears her throat and straightens up her posture, trying to compose herself and come across as professional. 

“You have yourself a deal Archie, I will let you help me reinstate Pop’s diner to its former glory and bestow the gift of milkshakes back into the town of Riverdale” 

He smiles at her again and holds out his hand for her to shake.

Veronica pretends like finally touching Archie Andrews after four years doesn’t affect her in any way at all and that the idea of friendship between the two of them doesn't scare the hell out of her.

They spend the rest of the day sat next to each other on the barstools, not quite ready to sit at one of the booth’s or go down into the speakeasy, discussing realistic plans for the diner over crudely made milkshakes and servings of fries, Veronica’s face is horrified when she sees Archie dip one of the fries into the frothy drink before eating it and begrudgingly tries it herself and unsurprisingly hates it. 

“It’s an abomination to taste buds Archie” she shrieks before swatting him on the shoulder when he begins to laugh at her. 

“No its’ not” he argues back “it's’ the idea of opposites attract… salty and sweet, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani, Xander and Cordelia”

She dramatically drops a fry back onto her plate.

“Oh my God” she deadpans “Archie Andrews has learned the power of pop culture references, the worlds gone mad” 

He mumbles a “shut up” before ducking his face into the crook of his elbow at the table, clearly trying to hide a smile which she teases him for, it feels good, it feels natural. 

The next morning the rest of Andrews construction turn up ready to take out all of the booths and tables, with Archie insisting that they’ll fix the smashed window for free. She’s excited to see more jacked guys in wife beaters but is extremely disappointed to see a group of scrawny teens turn up instead. 

She turns to Archie before asking “What? Did the lost boys from Peter Pan finally decide it was time to grow up and get a job? Or were the seven dwarfs already taken and you needed another group of underdeveloped people to take on the role?”

She’s kind of disappointed that he didn’t retaliate, but that quickly turns to mortification when he finally responds. 

“They’re all kids who would have used the REC centre before it was closed, have to keep them off the street somehow and plus I think most of them need the extra cash more than lessons in how to fight” he says whilst shrugging as if he hadn’t just gave Veronica one of the biggest guilt trips of all time. 

Fuck Archie and his stupid hero complex. 

Realistically she knows that he doesn’t actually blame her for pulling the funding out of the building when she left Riverdale - unlike Cheryl and Toni she was not willing to co run a business with an ex significant other. Anyway even if she continued the funding past senior year she would have had to stop halfway through college to fund… other more morally grey activities. Yet, that doesn’t stop her from feeling offended by what he said and by the heat rising onto his face, she guesses Archie regrets saying it too. 

Still, that doesn’t stop the lighthearted rapport they built over the past 12 hours from immediately dissipating into the ether. 

There’s a beat of silence between the two and Veronica has no idea what to respond with: anger? An excuse? A swift change of topic to the weather? Luckily before she has a chance to say anything Archie is being pulled to the other side of the Diner to look at a support beam and Veronica finds the cash register at the other end looking increasingly interesting and in desperate need of her attention. 

They don’t speak for the rest of the day, Veronica feeling guilty about the centre, and Archie feeling guilty for making her feel guilty about the centre. 

She defends her actions by reasoning that there was no time to talk to him, in the space of the day they had successfully managed to rip out all of the booths and tables within the diner, leaving it in a bigger mess than what they started with. 

It’s dusk by the time all of the kids leave, Veronica absentmindedly thinks that they probably have a curfew that they need to abide too, another part of her is also extremely jealous that these kids have the time for jobs, and curfews compared to her high school life that was full of murder and exploitation. 

Her and Archie however, stay behind to clean up the rubble and make sure all the crevices left by the furniture are refilled, and as she sweeps she wishes that the silence between the two of them could be filled as well. 

Broom in hand, she stomps to behind the counter and aggressively turns on the radio, genuinely surprised that it still works. At first the sound is crackly and she thinks about turning it off preferring the awkward silence to the heinous sound of white noise but eventually the sound begins to clear and now she really wishes that she turned the radio off.

She is absolutely certain that the fates are out to mock her, or that Cheryl Blossom is in charge of Riverdale’s music stations and knew her and Archie would be listening in a desperate attempt to kill time and wanted to torment them . 

“Bright lights, the music gets faster  
Look, boy, don't check on your watch, not another glance”

She’s stood in an empty diner, the only other person being Archie Andrews with “Kids In America” blasting through the radio, she’s certain that she looks like a deer caught in the headlights, and even more shocked when he bursts out into laughter and not ten seconds later she’s also laughing - the kind of laughter that causes you to clutch your stomach as you bend over and once its over have to wipe the happy tears from your eyes. 

“It’s not funny” she wines still trying to dab at her eyes with her apron and not smudge her mascara. 

“It kind of is Veronica” he says clearly trying to catch his breath after all of the laughter, he takes a long pause before continuing “look… we both know that we have history” 

They both cringe at his choice of wording, but she waits and lets him finish. 

“If we’re going to run away from each other everytime we bring something up from when we were teens, or something that even reminds us of that time it's going to take probably decades to get this diner finished, and it will be awkward as heck for us and I don’t want that” 

She was quick to interrupt him “so what are you suggesting that we just pretend we don’t know each other because thats-”

“Obviously not Veronica jeez, what kind of person do you think I am?” 

The type of person who cheats on their girlfriend with their best friend a voice in the back of her head says 

“I just meant that everytime something from our past comes up instead of letting it set our friendship back another ten steps we just ignore it, or… or laugh about it like we just did right now, because honestly if we don’t, I have no idea how we’re going to get through this” she forgot how much he used to wave his arms in arguments or in anything slightly confrontational. 

She can’t lie, this does seem like a solid plan, but there’s also a part of her that wants to point out that it hurts him a lot less to think of the past than it does her. It’s not like she wants to feel that pit at the bottom of her stomach whenever she’s reminded of their relationship - but she can’t help it. Everytime she thinks of him and Betty in his garage singing together the way they used to do, the pain still feels as raw as when she found out on graduation day, whoever said that pain dulls with time deserves a serious bout of karma. However, she’s also hesitant to admit that this probably does still hurts him too, she knows he never wanted to work in construction and if she hadn’t pulled all the funds from the REC center he would probably be pursuing a career in music right now, rather than ordering around a bunch of 16 year olds. So, as usual she finds herself following the path he’s laid out in front of them 

“I’m not shaking your hand again Andrews, especially when you’re that sweaty”

“I can live with that… lodge” 

“It’s Luna now, anyway don’t call me by my last name” 

She leaves the diner that night and lets Archie hold the door open for her and even walk her to her shitty car before he leaves in the opposite direction and she feels comfortable for the first time since coming back to Riverdale. 

So comfortable in fact, that she accidentally oversleeps the next morning and when she hurries to the diner she immediately sees that the smashed window has been fixed and Archie is standing opposite it with a big goofy grin on his face.

It’s interesting, being friends with Archie. They were never really friends as teenagers, even when they weren’t dating, it was all flirting or narrowly escaping death- not really the right time for innocent friendship to bloom. Instead they lived life at a quick pace: rushed confessions while one was poisoned, hurried sex before the mafia parent came home and tender kisses before being hauled away to juvie.

The season begins to change, humidity leaving the air and the leaves fall off the tree as October is welcomed. 

She’s shocked to learn that they actually have way more in common than she realised. She always knew that they had a similar taste in modern music, acoustic with earnest words and subtle guitar strings. What is news to Veronica however, is Archie’s love of Rat-pack music, the kind they both used to listen to with their parents. She finds it out one day when the radio is being finicky and they are forced to use the jukebox to fill the silence, the artistic stylings of Dean Martin and “ain’t that a kick in the head” blaring through Pop’s, Veronica immediately started humming to the tune, embarrassed until she realised that Archie was fully singing along, louder than the actual jukebox unabashedly even when Veronica looked back and giggled.

He merely shrugged before singing even louder than he had previously 

They also try to fill the gaps in their knowledge of each other's lives from the past four years, she knew that he never did go to college and is glad to learn that he’s single even if she won’t admit it, but by the look on his face she guesses he was surprised to learn that she completely blew her college career, more focused on having a good time with anybody that would so much throw her glance than trying to actually gain any sort of education- she’s not proud of her actions, but she’s also not sad on missing out life in the corporate business world either. 

“So you didn’t enjoy college at all?” he quizzes her 

She ponders for a moment “The business classes… no, but there were a few of my minor classes that I enjoyed, but more in the terms of a hobby than trying to make an actual career out of them” 

“Like what?”

“Like… poetry. I adored my intro class to it in freshman year, but once we delved into critics, and lenses and theories it took all of the fun out of it, I just liked the words, if that makes any sense” 

“It does” he replies and then chuckles “probably more than you know” 

She gives him a look that tells him to continue

They’re sat on the floor of the diner flicking through paint colours, she’s sat with her legs crossed and he has one of his stretched out between them, with the other tucked underneath- it doesn’t escape her that they’re feet are almost touching.

“I kind of read poetry now, I don’t write it, I've not quite reached their yet but it's the same as reading song lyrics for me, and I’m sure you’ve guessed I don’t really do much with music these days…” he begins to trail off towards the end of the sentence, and she doesn’t dare push, she can tell that quitting music took more of a toll on him that he’d liked to admit. 

“Well I can not lie this might be the biggest shock to me since I found out that Dan was Gossip Girl, but seriously Archie I have to ask who’s your favorite: I could see you liking someone like Hughes or Whitman maybe even Atwood…”

She knows that she’s continuing to rattle off poets to him, but all she can focus on is the fact that he had hitched one of his legs up and had his head resting on the knee, slightly cocked to the side with his eyes boring into hers, hanging onto her every word like she was some sort of prophet.

She eventually finishes with her list of poets but it still takes him an extra few seconds until he realizes that she had finished speaking and has to quickly come up with an answer 

“Erm, well I quite like shorter poems, I don’t really have the attention span, or time, for ones that are pages long. And I don’t really like much pre 20th century because I honestly think they’re above my reading level”

He’s doing that thing again where he scratches the back of his head, and she can see his ears beginning to turn red, clearly anxious that the answer he gives isn’t going to be good enough.

“But my favorite? Probably Neruda, because like you said I don’t really care about the meaning of the words I just like the sound of them. They’re as close to song lyrics that poetry can get” 

She feels her whole body erupt into shivers, especially under her left breast where Neruda sits etched onto her forever.

She tucks the strands of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail behind her ears and tells him that Neruda is never a bad choice and throws him a small smile, a silence washes over them, not awkward but not exactly comfortable either, before she squeals and points to the paint square called “cloudy gray” claiming that’s the one she wants. 

They also bond over their passion for improving the diner. They’ve been working together for just over a month and Andrew’s construction has slowly turned from her construction team, to part time interior designer. 

She originally thought about keeping the whole retro 50’s aesthetic that Pop’s used to have but quickly realised that looking like it came from the 1950’s wasn’t exactly a unique selling point for the diner considering the rest of riverdale looked exactly the same - even the hospitals. Plus, as much as she hates to admit it the neon lights and vinyl booth seats are just a little bit too nostalgic for Veronica to have to face everyday, especially when she only speaks to one third of the people that she made the said memories with. 

Instead she decides to give Pop’s diner the L.A makeover and convert it to the sort of urban loft aesthetic, with the speakeasy getting the same treatment and being converted into more seating space (she can’t yet decide to get rid of the stage or not). She paints all the walls a light gray, the tabletops become marble and the construction team help with some woodwork tops for the front of house and a feature exposed brick wall, hanging terrariums are seen all around, full with fake succulents thanks to Cheryl's contribution and copper cups for milkshakes rather than sundae glasses. 

She does have a feeling however, that Archie is massively undercharging her for all the work he’s been doing, because realistically she shouldn’t have been able to afford all of the renovations they’ve begun, yet for some miraculous reason it all seems to be within her budget. 

“Okay so I was thinking we should move the Pop’s sign outside onto the exposed brick wall, wouldn’t that be so sick Veronica?” she can not believe how excited he is about interior design, she’s starting to think she’s created a monster. 

“And also, how cool would it be if we could add some black and white tiles somewhere like maybe behind the counter, what do you think?” 

She personally isn’t too keen on the idea but she just doesn’t have the heart to tell him, it would literally be like kicking a golden retriever puppy in the face. 

“I don’t know Archie it sounds like a really good idea” lie “but I don’t really know if that’s in the budget?” at least the last part was truthful. 

“It will be in budget” 

She gives him a look 

“Trust me, okay?” 

And that’s the killer question really isn’t it.

She feels like this would ideally be the perfect time to ask him whether he’s been conveniently forgetting to charge her for certain jobs, because even though she knows that Archie has the short term memory of a goldfish and the organisational skills of a kindergartener, she truly struggles to believe that even he could make this many mistakes. 

Yet, she just can’t bring herself to do it. Because she really doesn’t want him to admit that he’s undercharging her in an attempt to pay back some of the medical bills, and therefore completely undermining her entire speech from a month ago about how that money was not a loan to repay and he didn’t need to try and get even with her. Also, she’s so afraid that if he admits to it, then she’d have to go back to her original plan for the diner, which is a lot more simple than the ambitious plans she’s trying to put in motion now. And yeah that would suck for the diner, but if the plans were more simple that means she would hardly need the construction team, and without the construction team she wouldn’t have the need for Archie either, she’s so not ready for them to become strangers again after all the effort they’ve made to rebuild their relationship, friendship. 

Even if he came into the diner everyday for a milkshake it wouldn’t be the same as the countless hours she gets to spend just the two of them right now, flicking paint at each other, betting what song is going to come on the radio, choreographing stupid dances during their breaks that even Kevin would be proud of. 

She’s sure if their relationship regressed to her only seeing him for a few minutes everyday whilst he waits for an order it would be the best damn few minutes of her day, but she’d much prefer it if the several hours she got to spend with him daily working on the diner were her favorite instead. 

It takes Veronica six weeks of being in Riverdale before she finally finds the courage to go visit her father’s grave. 

She stands in front of his grave with a pitiful bunch of flowers feeling equally as pathetic, even in death he manages to make her feel like she’s never enough. Still, despite all of the heinous and malicious acts Hiram had committed over the years, the fact she hadn’t visited his grave was pretty awful, even by her standards. She timidly places the flowers amongst all the other tens of extravagant bunches sent by her mother and sister weekly over the tombstone, and can’t help but let out a laugh at the inscription. 

HIRAM LODGE  
LOVING PADRE Y MARIDO  
1971-2020 

She stands there for a few minutes seriously debating whether people actually talk to graves in real life or whether that’s merely something that happens in films.

She lets out a stuttered breath, tries to stop the tears from falling and begins with “I’m sorry I don’t visit you enough Daddy , it’s just… it’s just hard for me to be here in Riverdale, the bad memories seem to outweigh all the good ones” 

She stops for a second when she feels the salty tears drip down her face and onto the earth, surprised that she’s crying this soon and how bad she is at keeping her emotions at bay. She lets the tears fall for a few more seconds before continuing with the speech she practiced in the car.

“Feel like I have a lot to update you on since I’ve been gone for four-” a lump begins to form in her throat , and she hates the fact that she still misses him, even after everything he did to her in her teenage years “ for four years” 

She gives up trying to wipe the tears away, it’s not like there’s anybody here to see her and there’s no need to ruin a perfectly good cream coat with mascara stains. 

“I’m sorry that I blew college, but I think we can both agree that I was never really orthodox enough for that life, More James dean in Rebel without a cause than in Giant if you will” she sniffles again before continuing. This time letting out the sob she’s been holding.

“I’m sure you’ll be practically ecstatic to hear that I don’t date Archie Andrews anymore, God I can’t believe that even at your worst you managed to fuck up our relationship” she starts laughing at this point and genuinely starts to worry that she’s going to have a nervous break down right on top of her father’s grave. 

“If it wasn’t for your illness, we would- we would have never have had that fight, and I wouldn’t have missed rehearsal, and if I was at rehearsal, they never would’ve, they wouldn’t have-” she’s practically hysterical now, choking on every other word. 

She takes a few more minutes to compose herself deciding that her dead father probably is not interested in hearing the melodramatics of her high school relationships, she does promise to try and visit him maybe a bit more frequently before leaving the headstone and walking in search of another. 

As she walks through the graveyard to try and find Fred’s, she is unfortunate enough to come across Hal Cooper’s on the journey. She looks at it for a few seconds and seriously considers spitting on it, but there’s plenty of graffiti on the grave already and she can’t really decide whether she wants to spit on the grave because he was a murderer or the father to Betty Cooper, so she decides against it. Plus if Fred is watching from his spot in the corner she’s sure he’d be disappointed in her. 

She doesn’t really have much to say to Fred, just wants to check on him after all these years, when she walks past his grave she’s happy to see that the $50 dollars that has been coming out of her bank account since the beginning of senior year of high school has gone to good use, the flowers left there are beautiful and she hopes that even though she didn’t personally come out and leave them here every month that he still realizes there from her. She finds it difficult to get back in the car and leave the site, and harder still to enter the diner that she spent so many nights there with Fred and her father, but when she walks through the door Archie is stood on the counter balancing one leg as he tries to reach the ceiling to screw in a light bulb, jumping down almost immediately to ask where she’s been all day, when she finds that the pressure she’s been feeling in her centre all day has dramatically lessened. 

It’s three days later when she opens the door to the diner and hears music coming from downstairs, she’s about to open the door to the speakeasy to tease him for it but she quickly recognizes that it’s the lyrics to “I’ll try” and decides simultaneously that it’s better to leave him alone and that she’ll be keeping the stage in the speakeasy. 

There’s two times that Veronica feels like their idea of laughing at their tumultuous past is going to epically fail and end in either a massive fight between the two, or even worse, nervous and awkward, scared to be in the same room for fear they’ll mess up again. 

One 

She’s standing painting one of the walls next to the window, whilst Archie is sanding down some wood for the tabletops, absentmindedly listening to the radio play broadway music, so far she’d heard spring awakening, newsies and possibly some falsettos? 

The host then announces that they actually have Neil Patrick Harris in the studio ready to interview about his diverse career in both Broadway and Hollywood, and whilst Veronica isn’t really all that interested in the filmography of Neil Patrick Harris she has a really good rhythm going with her painting that she doesn’t want to disturb so she lets the radio dwindle on and listens to Neil talk about his career - she does have to admit that her interest sparks a little when he begins discussing his guest star role on Glee. 

He then continues to talk about his broadway career and Veronica wants to kick herself for not realising where this is heading, she has no idea whether Archie was more astute and anticipated what he was about to say, or at least mention, but knowing Archie, she guesses probably not. 

She swears someone must have turned the radio up, because when Neil Patrick Harris nasally, tinny voice exclaims to the radio host and the 100 viewers or so that are listening that “Oh my God I loved doing Hedwig and The Angry Inch, to this day Origin of love is one of my favourite songs” it’s so loud that it’s almost deafening. 

She drops her paintbrush and cringes as it clatters to the floor sending paint flying onto one of the marble table tops, Archie meanwhile abruptly turns the sander off. She wishes he hadn’t turned it off though, because at least the mechanical grinding sound drowned out that of NPH gushing about how great the musical that ruined Veronica’s life is.

She’s then left standing on top of one of the diner stools as she watches Archie slowly move towards the radio, like if he moves suddenly Neil Patrick Harris will start airing all the details of Archie’s affair with Betty Cooper to the rest of the listeners. He finally reaches the radio and falters slightly before flicking the switch. His hands fall from the self and she sees them grasping onto the edge of the counter clearly expecting Veronica to make a snarky comment about how the origin of love didn’t only spark NPH’s love for Broadway but Archie’s love for Betty too.

And it’s the fact he’s expecting her to belittle him, that she decides to let it go. 

Archie’s spent his whole life feeling like he’s let people down and struggled to meet their expectations of him. She knows this because he told her it one night during senior year, under those plaid duvets at the Andrew’s house, whispering his insecurities into her collarbone whilst she stroked his hair as Mary slept next door, the glow from that stupid lava lamp the only thing stopping them from being in complete darkness. 

As a kid he didn’t think he was smart enough to be friends with either Betty or Jughead, not quite good enough to get any of the football scholarships to save his parents from tuition debt, Josie was always the musically gifted one,scared he would never be able to live up to the legacy of Fred Andrews “the nicest man in Riverdale” . Then even quieter, more muffled into her shoulder he admitted that he was fucking terrified of not being enough for her, not being able to give her the life she wanted - full of balls, and gala’s and meetings on private planes.

She was obviously quick to tell him that all she needed was him. 

It’s taken her four years to realize that he’s probably just as disappointed in himself as she was for cheating on her. She knows what it’s like to live a life full of regret at your past choices, and not believe that you’re a good person. She can’t let him go down a path like that.

She tentatively steps off the stool, ignoring the fact she’s definitely just smudged the wall with her fingertips after painting it for the past two hours and makes her way towards him, not sure whether the booming sound she can hear are her heels on the floor or the sound of her heart trying to make its way outside of her ribcage. 

He startles a little when she reaches his side, clearly not expecting her to want to be close to him, she’s sick and tired of running at the first sign of trouble. She ran at 16 when she couldn’t admit she loved him, and ran again at 18 when she found out that he cheated - but this time she’s staying. 

She wraps her arms around him and squeezes him with all the force she can muster up, which is admittedly not a lot, she’s always been crappy with words so she hopes he knows what this hug is supposed to mean. He doesn’t move for a second or two and she begins to think that she’s seriously overestimated the situation and read way more into it than Archie did, and he’s just simply not a fan of Neil Patrick Harris but then he envelopes his arms around her returning the hug with just as much vigor as she did to the point where her feet leave the ground by an inch or two. 

“It's okay Archie,” she whispers. 

He nods slowly, clearly taking her reply as the acceptance of an apology he gave over four years ago and she’s sure she feels him lean in to press a kiss to the crown of her head before he decides against it and lets her back onto the ground and she has to stop herself from trying to inhale his scent. 

Two 

The second time it's her that fucks up. 

She’s been in Riverdale for nearly three months now and she still can’t seem to shake Cheryl’s cryptic message about the fact Archie doesn’t play music anymore from her mind. 

He’s singing and tapping and humming and dad dancing around the diner practically everyday of the week for hours on end, so what praytell, is the difference between that and picking up a guitar to add some proper background music to his little performances. 

She originally thought that he might have just lost the knack for it, grown out of music just like she had grown out of her love for the business world. But clearly neither of these hypotheses were true, he’s every bit as talented as he was at 16 and just as passionate about music too. Plus the songs he sings now are way less depressing and the kind ‘you want to slit your wrists too’ as Jughead so eloquently put it. 

She’s sat in her bed at the B&B the patchwork quilt and wooden bed frame clearly an upgrade from a blow up mattress in the speakeasy, but nowhere near the standard of her silk sheets at the Pembroke. Then again she did used to spend countless nights in Archie’s bedroom surrounded by classic rock posters and video game memorabilia. 

“Okay so I think that’s the last song on the playlist for the diner, I can’t lie Veronica I think this might be our best work yet, the perfect balance between old stuff and modern”

Her eyes drift from the dull flowery wallpaper to the wooden bedside table where her phone displays the fact she’d been on call to Archie curating this playlist for almost four hours, her eyes also get distracted by the profile photo she chose from him - a selfie he took on her phone at a hideous angle but pulling one of the most genuine smiles she’s ever seen, it's a little blurred and his eyes aren't looking at the camera as the photo was taken just as Veronica realised what he was doing and made a futile attempt to grab her phone off him. 

“Ah yes the perfect balance” she drawls “ just like Blake Shelton and Gwen stefani” 

She can practically hear his eye roll through the speakers 

“Actually you’ll find I said they were exact opposites, not a perfect balance - very small but very important distinction” 

Now she’s the one rolling her eyes, but she also adds a scoff for good measure

“And anyway just because someone’s music stylings are opposite doesn't necessarily mean that they’re going to compliment one another” 

“Okay Rolling stones that’s enough music analysis for today”

She realizes this is probably her best chance to bring the topic up 

“Archie?...”

“Veronica?” he replies in the same inquisitive tone knowing how much it irritates her, she chooses to ignore it. 

“Why don’t you play music anymore” she tries to say it with confidence, but there’s a definite waver in her voice. 

“Like I said no money or time” he quickly retaliates

“That’s obviously not true Archie because-” 

“Veronica-” 

“Because we dealt all kinds of shit during high school and you still found time to pick up a guitar and sing every once in a while -”

“Veron-” she hears the edge to his voice, but continues on anyway trying to not sound as flustered and irritated as she feels

“And don’t get me started on that nonchalant attitude, because you’ve spent the last four hours discussing different music with me from the strokes to Britney Spears so you’re clearly still passionate about it and it makes no sense that you’re stopping yourself from enjoying-

“Fuck sake” he shouts “ I said leave it alone Veronica” 

He hangs up the phone without saying goodnight and Veronica is genuinely scared that he’s not going to be at the diner in the morning because she pushed him too far.

When she pulls up to Pop’s the next morning and sees him waiting on the doorstep nose red from the cold and eyes puffy from the fact he had clearly just woke up, she’s never been so glad to be so wrong.

Well they do say things come in threes

She’s sat on the counter behind the cash register fondly looking out the window to the blanket of snow that seems to have covered Riverdale overnight. The gray’s from the diner walls and the pristine white from the weather outside making her feel clean and revitalised, a striking difference compared to the dusky and humid night she first returned to Riverdale. The grubby feeling of the diner and the layers upon layers of grime on every surface, nowhere to be seen anymore.

If only they could fix the heating. 

Her hands are like ice at the touch and despite the numerous sweaters and hoodies and coats she put on this morning she just can’t seem to warm up. Which is why she has to stop herself from letting out an involuntary moan when Archie walks through the door with a coffee cup in each hand, teeth chattering and face red from the harsh sting of the cold. 

Their coffee machine was broken too. 

“What the hell is on your head Archie, and please return it to whatever fourth grader you stole it from”

He’s wearing one of those ridiculous woolen hats that cover your ears and have pom pom’s dangling off the sides. 

“It’s a hat Veronica, it’s supposed to be practical not stylish” he says as he flings it in her direction where it hits her squarely in the face before it slides to the floor, she’s not going to pick it up, the floor is probably cleaner anyways. 

She’s way too cold to actually get down from the counter and reach for the coffee so she just grumpily stares at it before Archie catches on and hands it to her. 

“You know that I’m not your maid right?” 

She gives him a long look up and down “ I’m not sure, if we swapped that gilet of yours with one of those aprons that look like a doilies I’m sure you’d fit the role” 

“I thought you pronounced it like gillet” 

He’s a moron. 

She holds the coffee up to her face and lets the heat from the cup radiate onto her face, the smell so tantalizing as she finally takes a sip, and realises it tastes like hot garbage. 

She looks up from the cup and doesn’t attempt to hide the grimace on her face and sees that Archie clearly didn’t think it tasted any good either. 

He’s making his way behind the counter when he says “I’m sure if we just add a shit ton of sugar and creamer to it, it will be drinkable” 

Veronica knows where Pop’s sugar and creamer supplies come from and she’s pretty sure in reality it will probably taste worse - but at this point she’s also willing to try anything to get a considerable amount of caffeine into her body. She’s also starting to think that an IV drip is possibly the best route, she’s sure she’s seen Gwyneth Paltrow try it on an Instagram live before. 

The sugar is still in an old ceramic pot on the shelf above Veronica’s head, but even sitting on the shelf she’s not tall enough to reach it, and plus with the amount of layers that she’s got on she can hardly move her arms. 

So instead Archie leans forward to grab the pot from the top shelf, and even with the gilet on she can see the henley underneath riding upwards and a pale strip of his stomach is exposed along with the beginnings of a snail trail. 

With his left arm stretching to reach the pot and his right braced on the counter to keep him stable, the rest of his body ends up perfectly situated between Veronica’s legs and she’s suddenly so grateful that she decided to wear sports leggings today rather than some sort of tight skirt so she can open her legs more to accommodate him, the added heat of his body making her erupt into goosebumps.

She can hear his breath hitch, and his hand falters from the shelf and instead rests itself on her upper thigh, whilst the one that was holding onto the table instead begins to skim her calf idly. 

He turns his head too so that their noses are touching and Veronica can feel her breathing becoming laboured, his eyes flutter shut and at this distance she can still see tiny bits of snow clinging to his eyelashes, he’s so close at this point but also too far away for how Veronica wants him.

So she pulls him closer. 

She slips her nimble fingers into the waistband of his jeans and yanks him forward, desperate to increase the amount of contact they have, feeling that familiar and welcomed sensation at her core.  
He groans when she pulls him forward, and she’s embarrassed to admit that she’s turned on just by the noises he’s making and finally being in close proximity to him after all this time. 

She also revels in the fact that she’s still capable of coaxing these sorts of sounds out of him . Veronica tentatively moves forward bringing one of her arms up to play with the hairs at the nape of his neck fondly. His eyes are still closed but she can’t get herself to do the same. She wants to savor every detail, every sensory reaction when she has her fifth first kiss with Archie Andrews. 

She’s about to lean in and finally press her lips to his when she realises that it’s always her that initiates these first moves when it comes to re-establishing their relationship. A part of her wants to torment him and see how long he can last whilst she sits there all pouty and breathing heavily before he is the one to finally make the first move.

A part of her also seems to recognise the fact that it was also Betty that made the first move all those years ago in his garage, and maybe Archie is just too chivalrous to make the first move on anyone. 

This is also the exact moment she remembers that Archie cheated on her with her best friend.

She quickly snaps her head in the opposite direction, causing Archie’s eyes to open wide, pupils blown to hell and only a small ring of hazel left visible. 

Veronica hadn’t realised that her legs had involuntarily made their way to his hips, making it ten times harder to try and disentangle herself from him. She hastily jumps from the counter, practically stepping onto his toes and sending him tumbling back to the other side of the counter. Fumbling out a sorry before grabbing her bag off the side and ditching the coffee telling Archie she’s only just remembered that she promised that she would have a girls day with Cheryl today to try and cheer her up over her and Toni’s break up and that she didn’t want to be late, lest she face the wrath of Cheryl Blossom. 

The only sound to be heard as she runs out of the diner, not even bothering to have closed the door behind her is the sound of Archie’s fists slamming into a wall. 

She hasn’t even made it to the car when she realises how truly terrible her excuse from running out was. The Maple leaf had literally posted something the day before announcing how glad they were to say that the owners had sorted out their differences and would be having a celebratory getting back together party the following month, because of course Cheryl thinks her and Toni getting back together is cause for a shindig. 

She’s halfway back to her Bed and Breakfast when she has to pull over, the long winding roads of Riverdale becoming blurry in her vision due to unfallen tears, her whole body shaking to the point where she nearly stalls the car trying to brake, it also takes her a few goes to successfully take the keys out of the ignition. Once the car’s stopped Veronica feels like she can breathe for the first time since she left the diner, resting her head on the wheel of the car she lets herself cry.

It sounds ridiculous now, but she’d just started to convince herself that her and Archie were truly destined to be platonic friends. And that maybe instead of Betty and Archie’s infamous kiss being a bump in the road for their relationship, their relationship was a bump in the road to their eventual friendship. They just needed to get rid of all potential sexual tension as teenagers to be able to make a platonic commitment as adults. But at 22 years old Veronica finds herself crying in her shitty car as she realises that she still is irrevocably in love with Archie Andrews and her feelings are nowhere near that of just friends. 

As soon as she gets back to her room she takes a long hot, scalding shower hoping that she can scrub the feeling of his fingertips off her and wash those pesky feelings down the drain. 

They only had a week left on construction before they were all gonna take a few weeks break for the holidays, but Veronica decides it’s probably best to email Andrews Constructions saying she wants to shut down production a week early, in the most polite emotionally devoid way possible. Then spends the next few days packing up the Bed and Breakfast ready to go back to California to spend Christmas with her mom. 

The next few weeks of Veronica’s life are… Okay. Things never really healed between her and Hermione after high school, both of them always so sure that the other is a step away from betraying the other, and constantly using Hiram’s words to guilt trip the other. Now when she visits they sit in silence with large glasses of red watching trashy TV and scoffing at all the contestants who think they’re about to find their true love. 

It’s nice to be back in a house full of luxury. Unlike Veronica, Hermione had used the money from Hiram’s will wisely, finally able to own a penthouse in her own name rather than her husbands. The apartment isn’t as impressive as the Pembrooke, but certainly more modern and Veronica’s just happy to be somewhere that she can get champagne on call and doesn’t have to clean up her own mess. 

Well physical mess, she still has to fix the emotional mess she left back in Riverdale. 

Christmas rolls around quicker than Veronica would like and she spends most of the time drafting and deleting text messages to Archie before turning her phone off, actually preferring to hear Hermosa drone on about how the rum company is doing than trying to come up with an appropriate message. 

By the time it’s New Years Eve Veronica feels the pit in her stomach return at the thought of Archie out clubbing, but is elated when she looks at his Instagram story to see that instead he is watching films with Mary in the Andrew's living room. She drafts a few messages again before deciding that they all sound forced and it’s probably better to send a photo instead. She sends him a selfie of her pulling a dorky smile, alone in the living room, all marble walls and laminate floors, glass of red in hand, the TV playing When Harry Met Sally in the background. 

The caption reads:

Looks like I’m in the same predicament as you are Archie, hears to a more exciting year than the way it ended XO

He replies almost immediately with a photo of him and Mary smiling at the camera wearing some dumb Instagram filter that gives them happy new year headbands and tells her his year will start getting interesting again when she finally returns to Riverdale (to help fix the diner of course) 

She knows that it’s still going to be awkward between the two of them when she gets back to Riverdale, but at least it’s a start. 

She was right. 

The first day back at the diner is a little awkward, the heating still isn’t fixed so Veronica is constantly running around offering all of the teens hot chocolate and extra pairs of gloves, but every time she goes to ask Archie the same question he runs to the other end of the room as if she was going to fully blame him for the incident, when in reality she was just as responsible for nearly mauling him as he was her. Actually, it was Veronica who grabbed him by the waistband and yanked him forward like she was some sort of sexually depraved nun who was experiencing pleasure for the first time. 

Desperate to try and absolve him from the unnecessary guilt she waits until the end of the day when all the other workers have gone before finally laying out her plan. 

“Archie!” she shouts from down in the speakeasy, forcing a sense of panic into her voice

She hears him ungracefully bound down the steps before she actually sees him, only feeling a little guilty for tricking him into thinking she’s in trouble to finally get his attention. 

He turns the corner on the last step almost too quickly and nearly ends up sprawled onto the speakeasy floor before he catches himself at the last second. 

When he looks up at her he has wild almost crazed eyes and is clearly scanning over her body to see if there’s any harm, when he reaches her face and sees her biting lip trying to suppress a smirk she guesses that’s when he realizes this was all some part of a scheme.

“You’re going to kill me one day” he says whilst pressing his finger to his temple as if she causes him to have a literal headache

“I’m sorry” she says trying to keep her voice serious rather than laughing at him for how crazy he looked as he was coming down the stairs. “But you’ve been ignoring me all day and I really needed to tell you something, but everytime I so much looked in your direction you’d run a mile! This was the only thing I could think of!”

Great, now he’s looking at her like she’s crazy. 

She holds her phone up towards his face, but he’s clearly too far away to read it, she lets out a sigh and locks her phone before just finally telling him 

“It’s Cheryl and Toni’s getting back together party tonight… and I think we should go”

Now he’s truly looking at her like she’s gone insane

“No seriously, I think it’s a good idea, we’ll go as friends, it will be nice to catch up with both of them, and things have been pretty awkward between us today… it would be nice to you know, let loose and ease tension and all that jazz” she rambles whilst wringing her hands. 

It feels like an eternity before he responds, and she’s so worried that he’s going to reject her. She knows that she only asked him as a friend, but still Veronica really doesn’t know if she can take more of a hit to her already very bruised ego 

“No, yeah you’re right things have been a bit tense, let’s do it”

She's going to tell him that she’ll pick him up at eight, but he has a way nicer car than she does now. Plus she’s’ not too sure if she’s ready to go back to the Andrew’s house yet there’s just too many memories there that she doesn’t want to have to unpack, at least not tonight. Tonight is for letting go and having fun like she’s still in college.

“Great. You can pick me up at eight” 

She decides to wear a white halterneck mini dress, hoping that the white won’t clash too much with the maple leaf’s decor and that if she gets drunk enough she won’t feel the January breeze (there’s also a part of her hoping that if she gets cold that Archie will offer her his jacket.) 

Even with the dress’ open back, she’s worried it looks a little bit too evening tea rather than a club outfit, so Veronica spends a bit longer tousling her hair, makes her eyeshadow a little bit darker and smokier than she usually does and searches through the bottom of her makeup bag before finding a dark plum lipstick - like the ones she used to wear in sophomore year. 

Taking another look in the mirror, Veronica notices that her entire hair and makeup look a lot like it used to when she first arrived in Riverdale, her hair being way shorter and darker than it was in senior year. She cut it off only a few months into college, sick of the long raven waves becoming a hindrance in clubs and has kept it that length ever since. 

She also feels like a teenager, nervously glancing at the clock waiting for it to finally reach 8 o clock. 

When it reaches 5 to, she decides that it’s probably better to wait downstairs in the communal lounge than up in her room.

The lounge is quaint, and distinctly reminds her of Lorelai’s hotel from Gilmore Girls. Dark wooden panels across the wall, met by a muted mauve wallpaper that she assumes has been there since at least the 1980’s. Every couch is adorned with a plethora of embroidered cushions and crochet blankets, holes so big she could probably fit her fingers through. The lamps have a ridiculous amount of frills on them and each coffee table is stained with mug rings, not a single coaster in sight.

It would probably look ugly to most people, and honestly it’s kind of hideous to her too. But it’s nice to be in a place that actually looked like its been lived in, like good memories have been made here. 

She’s got her chin resting on one of the brown leather couches when she sees his car pull up. In any other situation she would consider a Volvo to be below her standards, but when her current car is a honda civic and she half expected Archie to turn up in the Jalopy, she’s extremely grateful for the 4x4. 

She slowly watches him as he makes his way to the Bed and Breakfast door, happy that he actually has worn a proper dress shirt for once, she also tries to subtly check out his ass in the slacks too. Now that she’s admitted that her feelings aren’t platonic she’s found it increasingly difficult to stop looking at him, especially certain parts of him. 

She jumps up when she hears the heavy front door being opened, almost stumbling in her stilettos and a little embarrassed that she just sent herself into a daydream by merely looking at him. 

She brushes her dress off, already regretting the decision to wear white, but when she looks at Archie’s face she’s certain that the color was the right choice

“Veronica you look..” he breaks off into a smile and shakes his head like he’s struggling to gather the words 

“Amazing? Great? Hot?” 

“I’m gonna go with beautiful” 

Fuck she’s blushing now, and can feel the heat on her face.

“Thank you Archiek- Archie. And I must say you scrub up well when you finally decide to wear something that’s not a henley” She manages to say the rest of the sentence with confidence, despite almost slipping up with the old nickname, but if he notices he doesn’t comment and Veronica is extremely grateful for that. 

“It reminds me of the dress you wore for your confirmation” he adds 

She looks down. He’s right. It’s certainly more suitable for a “sock hop” than her confirmation dress, as her mother would put it, but there’s definitely a few similarities. The colour, the embezzled neckline and open back - she can not believe he remembers what she wore in that much detail.

“I hate to admit it, but you’re right Mr. Christian Siriano” 

“You had to have guessed that that I would have no idea who he is” 

“Pretty much” she nods, desperately trying to stop herself from mashing her lips together in a nervous gesture. 

She looks towards the front door, signalling to him they should probably leave soon, according to Cheryl tardiness was the 8th deadly sin. 

Expecting Archie to hold out his arm for her to loop onto, she is both surprised and a little bit ecstatic to see him hold out his hand for her to grab onto instead - she of course happily obliges. 

They walk out of the reception area, hand in hand and down the path towards the car. Archie is staring at her the whole day down and even though the sun is already set and there’s a definite chill to the air, Veronica feels like she’s on fire with his eyes on her and holding his hand. She wonders what they must look like, the two of them, leaving a serene little cottage down the stone path, flowerbeds on either side of them, clasping hands until Archie has to let go to open the car door for her, she’s not sure what it exactly looks like, but whatever it is she’s enjoying it. 

If the queue for the maple leaf was long during her first night back at Riverdale, she has no idea how to describe the “queue” tonight, it was more like a crowd of people to shove their way through the single doorway. 

Veronica is in the middle of thinking how she can get her and Archie to the front of the queue when he interlocks their fingers and helps guide her through the crowds of people and straight toward the bouncer. 

“Archie” she shouts, hoping he can hear as she elbows different people out of the way, even with her stiletto’s she’s smaller than most and is starting to get lost in the masses.

“I don’t think they’re gonna believe us if we say we know the owners, it's like the oldest trick in the book” 

“Probably” he responds also shouting, as they get closer to the door, the crowds' voices eliminated by the music from the speakers and inside the club. “But I rang Cheryl this afternoon to tell her to put us on the guest list, you forget that I’ve been here for the past four years, I know how busy it gets here” 

“That was surprisingly smart” 

He looks back at her and smiles. 

Before she was a bit worried that she’d be freezing all night but as soon as she enters the club she’s suddenly anxious that she’s wearing too many clothes, the place is packed and it's ridiculously humid inside. 

Archie manages to drag them both to the bar for a few rounds of shots before they both decide to try and find Cheryl to get access to the VIP area considering how busy the main one is.

But as soon as Veronica steps off the bar stool she realizes that the indecipherable number of shots she’s just had have went straight to her head and as she walks across the dance floor aiming for the red mini dress that she guesses is Cheryl she struggles to walk in a straight line, even with Archie towing her behind him. 

When they get closer, Veronica is ecstatic to see that the red mini dress was in fact Cheryl, and even more excited to see that the figure standing next to her with electric blue hair is none other than one miss Antoinette Topaz. 

She lets go of Archie’s hand for the first time since they left the car and stumbles to give Toni a hug.

She pulls away and takes a step back to compliment her on the change of hair 

“It’s blue!” She exclaims in between all her giggling “like a Topaz” 

Toni nods on her direction in a similar way you do to a young child in an attempt to keep them quiet before turning to Archie

“You should have been looking after her” Toni scolds “we all remember how much of a lightweight Veronica is” 

“What” Archie shouts “I can't…” Now he’s the one who’s giggling, looking at Veronica before they both start in peels of laughter, leaning onto one another for support. 

Cheryl steps forward to place her hand on Toni’s shoulder and whispers “I think we both forgot that Archie was never too good at holding his liquor either” 

Toni watches them for another ten seconds before finally getting annoyed at feeling like she was the only one not a part of an inside joke and begins to snap her fingers in front of their faces - a futile attempt to try and gain their attention. 

“What did you guys’ want, I’d much rather be spending the night with my girlfriend than babysitting your drunk asses” 

Veronica attempts, and fails, to appear more sober to them both by standing on her own, rather than leaning on Archie for support, but the sluggish quality to her voice probably didn’t help convince them.

“We were wondering…” shit she couldn’t remember what she was supposed to ask them 

“We were wondering” Archie interrupts nearly falling over his two front feet as he takes a step forward, not like there was enough room to fall anyway “Is there anywhere a bit more private, you can hardly get moved in here” 

“Afraid not” Cheryl replies, “even me and TT underestimated how much of an event our getting back together would be, we’ve had to open the VIP area to the commons in order to fit everybody in” she smirks at them both before adding “plus we both knew you’re tendencies in high school, do you really think we’d let you too hormone fuelled neanderthals into any private space of our establishment.”

Veronica pretends that she’s too drunk to understand what Cheryl’s insinuating and she has a feeling Archie does the same as well, before they can try and swiftly change the topic (which she’s sure wouldn’t be too successful considering her drunken state) somebody else calls for the hostesses and just like that Archie and Veronica are left by themselves after just being reminded about their previous sexual history and tendencies. 

The embarrassment of Cheryl’s comment however, seems to sober them both up, which would normally be a negative thing as Veronica hates being sober in places where everyone else is drunk, but this way she’s only slightly tipsy and will be able to remember every detail with her night with Archie. She’s not too mad about that 

They dance to all the generic pop songs that are being played, Veronica particularly enjoys dancing to Partition when it plays, and looking by Archie’s face he enjoys her dancing too. She’s so warm in the packed club that she can feel the sweat around her hairline making her baby hairs curl, she’d be self conscious over it but when she looks over at Archie and sees the sheen to his face for similar reasons she figures it’s not something to be worried about.

Despite starting in the middle of the dance floor, during the course of the night they seem to slowly migrate to the outer edges of the crowd and towards the opposite end of the room, right next to the empty stage set up. He keeps on looking back at the stage, mind clearly elsewhere. Veronica tries to distract him but it’s clearly no use. She knows that asking him why he stopped playing music ended badly last time, but she’s still a little tipsy and her judgement isn’t at it’s best. She also knows that Archie is still relatively drunk and hopes that this means his guard will be and down and she can finally get an answer out of him. 

“That stage isn’t a girl you know, you can look at it all night, it won’t come ask you to buy it a drink” she states 

“I know, I know it’s just…” 

“You miss it”

He sighs so loud that she can hear it even over the sound of Mr. Brightside “I do.” 

“Then start playing again” she wines, stomping her foot like a petulant child “There’s nothing stopping you”

‘I just can’t Veronica” he says whilst shaking his head 

She’s so close to getting an answer, so she just keeps pushing “why not?”

No reply.

“Why not Archie?” she begs, not even sure if he can hear her with how breathy her voice is.

“Because of my Dad.”

“You’re Dad? Well that was an answer she wasn’t expecting. “You’re Dad loved your music Archie, he would be proud of you to take it on as a career”

“I know that” he says, just as a strobe light flickers past him, illuminating his face and showcasing to Veronica the tears running down it, and she has to clench her fists to stop herself from brushing the tears off his face. 

“Then help me understand” she whispers

“I cheated on you with my Dad’s guitar”

Hearing the words “cheating” coming from his mouth still hurts, but it’s more like an ache rather than a sting now, plus it hurts way less than seeing him cry. So she pushes her own feelings to the side for once and tries to focus on him instead.

And it might just be because she's drunk but she has no idea what he’s saying, the confused look she gives him clearly indicates that she isn’t following what he’s saying.

He groans, clearly frustrated at not being able to say what he’s thinking properly in his drunken state “When me and Betty kissed when practising Origin of Love” she’s surprised that he too cringes at the prospect of that cursed kiss “I was using my Dad’s guitar, and I kept on thinking about how disappointed he would be… and how I’d just dishonored his name, holding his prized position whilst cheating on the girl that I love”

He’s rambling, and she’s drunk but she still catches onto the fact he uses the present tense when it comes to love. 

“Like- like I couldn’t even do that one thing for him, uphold his legacy, he sacrificed his life for someone else and I can’t even keeps his things untarnished- what kind of son is like that”

Okay he’s really rambling now. Bordering on hyperventilating and Veronica is starting to get worried. 

“I don’t deserve to play music anymore, not after that. I mean my mom goes and puts these really extravagant bouquets of flowers on his grave once every month that must cost a fortune and I couldn’t even-”

“I do that.” she interrupts 

“What?”

Well that stopped his rambling, he’s stood closer to her now, chest heaving after his rant.

“The flowers. It’s me. I leave them every month”

“But you have no money” he retaliates “Veronica those flowers have been left there every month since senior year and you’re telling me you did that- for my Dad?” his voice cracks at the last question.

Veronica is also worried that she doesn’t have the strength to speak so she merely nods and looks at him straight in the eyes, dark bourbon meeting honey., and hopes that the sentiment is just as powerful, she was always the one who spoke through her actions in their relationship. 

But this time, Archie takes control and firmly places his lips on hers, with so much force and pressure that when they seperate there’s a loud popping noise and a string of saliva between the two of them. 

They both stare now, completely in shock, Archie by her revelation, the fact she was still looking after his family four years later,and that she still clearly cares for him. And Veronica at the fact he finally after all these first times had the courage to kiss her first. 

Neither of them are sure who initiates the second kiss, or the third. 

Veronica has to lean almost all the way back so that he can reach her lips, definitely confirming her suspicions that he’s grown whilst she was in college. 

They’re still well versed with each other's bodies, Veronica goes for his bottom lip, dragging it between her teeth and secretly hoping that it bruises, whilst Archie goes for the top one. 

When they straighten back up Veronica groans at the loss of contact between the two of them, but suddenly gasps when he pulls her back closer with the feeling of his large hand on her bare back. 

She has to stand on her tiptoes, even with the stiletto’s on and she’s starting to feel a cramp in her calf, but it’s all worth it when Arcie tangles his hands in her hair, applying just the right amount of pressure. Veronica immediately forgets about the pain in her leg when he reconnects their lips and instead focuses on wrapping her arms around the nape of his neck, and playing with his ears because she knows how much he enjoys that. Desperate to relieve the need for friction at her core, she pushes herself even closer to him so that their chests are touching one another and she is just about to hitch her leg onto his hip where his waistband lies when some distant part of herself remembers that they’re still in a public setting and she really wants to prove to Cheryl that unlike their teenage selves they don’t have some sort of exhibitionist kink. 

Their lips are slotting against each other perfectly, Archie’s tongue finally beginning to slip its way into her mouth, when she reluctantly pulls away, thoroughly breathless after making out with Archie Andrews like she’s 17 again. 

“We should” he starts kissing his way down her neck “ go somewhere” now he’s sucking on the point where the junction of her neck meets her shoulder and she can’t stop her sentence being interrupted by a groan as he bites down and her eyes start rolling to the back of her head “somewhere a bit more private Archie”. 

They disentangle themselves fully this time and practically run out of the club towards the parking lot outside and Archie fumbles on his phone for a taxi service. 

“The B&B is only like a ten minute walk” she suggests

He immediately locks his phone and they start pacing down the street trying to reach her room in record time. 

Veronica has no memory of how they actually make it back. Only a few fuzzy memories of being pressed against every surface they pass whether it be a lamppost or an alleyway. At one point she’s sure he places her on top of a trash can, the gasp she emits each time at being sat on such a cold surface really not helping the situation for either of them. Cradling Archie’s hips between her legs as he continues to suck on the pulsepoint he was deprived of at the club. 

She ends up pressing him against the door of the bed and breakfast, sliding her tongue into his mouth, her hands tucking into the waistband and palming his dick through his trousers. She’s almost got the key in the door when he lets out a breathy moan causing her hand to jitter and miss the lock. 

When they finally get inside they have to be quiet again. Luckily there’s only a few people staying at the inn and most of them are older and already in bed considering it was bordering on 4 am. 

It’s funny that they’ve spent four years apart, but the 30 seconds or so that it takes them to go up the stairs and to her room are torturous and possibly the longest 30 seconds of her life. She feels cold again once his touch leaves her, and she’s terrified that every second they’re not touching is another second where he can slip away from her again - and she’s not ready for that to happen. Separated by only a few steps, but she feels like she could cry at how depraved she feels, both turned on and scared by how much she needs him.

Once in her room they stand opposite each other about a foot apart, neither one daring to turn the light on. Scared that if they have to look the other one in the eye they’ll call the whole thing off. 

Veronica is also astutely aware that tonight can go one of two ways. It can be soft and slow and tender, with whispered words and feelings or it can be fast and intense and passionate, no words, the only sound the noises they make or that of their bodies touching. 

She still feels a little vulnerable around him, not quite ready to bare her soul or feelings for him yet and makes the decision on her own to go for the second option. 

They’re used to having to fuck in the dark, so she manages to accurately launch herself into his arms without knocking anything over, groaning when he hoists her up, his hands on her ass and her panties lining up with the seam of his trousers eleviating her need for friction as she rubs up against him. 

She is sure that his actions at the maple leaf and walking back to the B and B have left her with a smattering of hickies, so she decides to give him the same treatment. Carding her fingers through his hair she begins to suck on the pulsepoint just below his ear, but apparently Archie has other ideas as he blindly backs his way through the room, only pausing when he hits the bed, knees buckling as he sits on the edge of the bed. Leaving Veronica straddling him, legs stretched as they rest on either side of his, both slightly startled by the sound of her dress ripping at the sides and their teeth clacking together as they laugh.

Having done this many times before she knows what his next move is, so quickly finds time to pepper kisses all over his face and neck, making sure to press one to the dent in between his eyebrows, his face scrunching in the most adorable way. Simultaneously, she helps him unbutton his shirt and throw it into some corner of the room not caring where it lands. She stands up for a second to let him shimmy out of his jeans and boxers, she can tell that he’s already hard and it sends a sensation through her stomach, but she goes to her knees anyway.

Veronica is ready to put her mouth on him, but his hand comes to cup her face and tells her there’s no need before, bringing her back up to kiss. 

She sits one of his legs content to kiss him for a few minutes, when she feels like it's all becoming too tender for her liking and begins to set a rhythm grinding down onto his thigh. 

He seems to catch onto what she’s doing and wraps his arm around her torso, the other still in her hair before he flips them over. Now she’s laying on her back on the bed, hair spread messily on the pillow, lips swollen from all the kissing and heart trying to make its way out of her ribcage. Archie’s above her, hand bracing the wooden headboard as his eyes scan over her, and despite the fact he’s fully naked and she’s fully dressed Veronica has never felt so bare. 

Clearly thinking the same thing, Archie begins to kiss his way down all of her exposed skin. Starting at her jaw, making his way down her neck and shoulder, before trailing down her arms and pressing his lips against her knuckles, leaving veronica writhing and mewling beneath him. 

“Archie…” she wines 

He presses a chaste kiss to the inside of her wrist before whispering “you’re still wearing too many clothes”

He gets off the bed and she lifts her hips to let him take off her panties, another item of clothing thrown into the room, not caring where it ends up. Staring at her fold reverentially, Veronica’s breath speeds up, she’s feeling a little too vulnerable and also ridiculously turned on, she was dripping by the time they left the club anything else is just teasing now. 

She sits up suddenly causing Archie to look up at her in concern clearly thinking she’s about to call it off, the insecurity in his face recognisable even in the dark.

She shakes her head “no need” and quickly begins to unzip her dress before pulling it over her head and lying back down, feeling Archie’s dick twitch against her thigh at the revelation she wasn’t wearing a bra. 

Archie climbs back above her and hitches her right leg onto his hip looking down at her for confirmation to which she quickly nods. 

He’s resting his forehead against the crook of her neck, forearm braced beside her when he pushes in. He lets out a loud moan whilst she gasps, its only just the tip but veronica hasn’t had sex since she’s been back in Riverdale and the stretch, whilst welcomed, takes a second to get used to. 

“Give me a second” she murmurs, whilst stroking his hair trying to inhale the smell of him: sweat, pine and a faint smell of booze. 

“You okay?” he replies after a few seconds, the strain in his voice clearly reflecting on his desire to start moving.

“All good Archiekins” she replies before kissing him on the cheek. 

He starts moving and then both of them stop talking for a while, the only sound they're capable of making being that of moans and whimpers. 

He starts picking up the pace, and Veronica feels her eyes sting with how good it hurts, clenching around him as she tries to adjust for him. 

“Ver-Ver..” He’s obviously trying to get her name out but is tripping on the syllables, and she can tell that he’s close - she is too. 

“You can say it” she adds, the hand in his hair, drifting to where their bodies meet so that she can rub circles on her clit

“God Ronnie” he groans speeding up the pace once more, rhythm getting erratic as he finally waits until she pushes over the edge and biting on her hand to stop the noises before he follows her. 

He shakily goes to roll off her, but Veronica stops him, firmly pushing the leg around his torso down 

“Not yet” she says shaking her head

He chuckles slightly, before attempting to move all of the stray bits of her on her face and kissing each of her closed eyelids “I’ll squash you Ronnie”

“What a wonderful way to go,” she sighs in retaliation. 

This time he properly laughs as he rolls off her.  
They both lie there on opposite sides of the bed for a few moments, not touching and trying to regather their breath. Veronica waits another minute or so, before curling into his side as he starts to card his fingers through her hair, and this time she knows she’s not imagining it when he presses a kiss onto the top of her head as she falls asleep. 

Veronica wakes up, damp with sweat, a killer headache and a sore ache between her legs, something is radiating heat onto her back so she moves to roll onto the other side of the bed, but a strong arm wrapped around her torso pulls her backwards so that her back hits his chest. He groans in his sleep, clearly disturbed when she goes to move away and buries his head back into the crook of her neck, heavy breathing returns as he carries on sleeping. 

Shit. 

Whilst Archie is clearly relaxed and comfortable, Veronica is now wide awake and her whole body is tense and stiff as the memories from last night come flooding back, she cannot believe that she slept with Archie, and then slept with him again in the middle of the night when she woke up to his erection pressed against her leg. Then after sleeping with him twice, instead of kicking him out like her normal protocol he stayed the night and then they literally slept together, legs intertwined and hands clasped on her stomach. 

She slowly turns around in his arms to try and peer over his shoulder to see what the time is, the alarm clock states that it’s 6:40 AM. Veronica weighs up her options: on the one hand Archie is a pretty early riser and if he wakes up to her empty room that’s gonna create more problems than solve ones, on the other hand they were both extremely drunk last night and from past experience she knows that Archie sleeps like the dead once he’s had a drink. 

Heart beating loudly in her chest, either from the realisation of what happened last night or out of fear of waking him up, she manages to get out of the bed and stumble around in the dark to find some clothes to wear. Nearly tripping over Archie’s boxers in the process. 

She finally manages to put some leggings and an old Riverdale high sweatshirt on and splashes some cold water on her face, it’s clear that she’s hungover by her appearance but shE also figures it will do, it’s not like she’s planning on meeting anybody just going on a walk to clear her mind. 

The bed and breakfast is located on Riverdale’s high street, which in all honesty is just a few boutiques and vacant buildings, but as Veronica walks through the town the sun begins to rise casting an orange glow over everything, and she reluctantly admits that when Riverdale is quiet and empty it can actually be quite beautiful. 

She’d actually be able to appreciate the view if her mind wasn’t so focused on trying to figure out what last night meant. 

Did this mean they were back together? Surely it couldn't be that, they didn’t talk about anything, Veronica knows now that she wants a relationship with him, but there’s so many things, difficult things, they need to talk about first. They need to be on the same page.

She would much rather keep him as only a friend than blindly go into a relationship with him because they were too scared to talk about the past and then lose him again because of miscommunication and harbored tensions. 

She knows that it wasn’t just sex, that it could never just be that between the two of them, but that also doesn’t mean that just because they slept together all abandonment, trust and commitment issues have flown out the window just like their self control. 

In both her and Archie’s defense there wasn’t really much time to discuss relationship statuses last night, wasn’t really time for any words at all. Hell, she didn’t even tell him that she was on the pill that’s how irresponsible they were.

She wanders down the road for a few more minutes, before deciding that she should start heading back now that her mind is more clear and she knows what she wants out of the situation. 

She wants him, she wants to be in a relationship with him. 

True, this is also wanted when she was 18 years old, but what’s changed now is that she’s forgiven him for what he did with Betty, I mean she literally slept with his best friend to get revenge, and Veronica can say for certain that that is something she regrets - sex with Jughead Jones is definitely not an action worth repeating. 

Obviously she knows that forgiving him isn’t enough, they’ll have to talk about it and they’ll probably both cry and it might be a little awkward going back to being in love with him after four years (as if she ever actually stopped) but it will be worth it, and that’s the main thing. 

Literally in the process of turning round is when Veronica sees a fuzzy figure in the distance waving at her, unfortunately her eyes weren’t as clear as her mind due to her forgetting to put her contacts in and still relatively hungover. 

She sees a pink blazer, large black across the body handbag and voluminous blonde hair before she realises in horror that Alice Cooper is beckoning her over, clearly wanting to catch up. 

“Mrs. C!” she says, raising her voice an entire octave and hoping that it's enough fake enthusiasm whilst walking over to hug the older woman. 

“Veronica, how lovely to see you, if I knew you were in town I would have invited you over to dinner” 

Veronica, Alice, FP and Jellybean all at a dinner table. Veronica thinks that this could be the only dinner party worse than the one she had with Cheryl’s family during sophomore year. 

“What a shame” she replies not bothering to tell Alice that she’s gonna be in Riverdale for a long time considering she’s going to be running the diner, leaving ample time for them to catch up over dinner “I would have loved to see more of you and Mr. Jones”

Alice blinks, looking taken back and then blinks once more before continuing “Me and FP are no longer, haven’t been since nearly a year, you can imagine how pleased Betty and Jughead were about that” she adds and forces a laugh that sounds so unhinged Veronica can’t help but take a step back. 

She also hadn’t thought about how awkward it must have been for Betty and Jugheads’ parents to still be together whilst they were broken up, did they still spend the holidays together like siblings (gross) or did they have a rota deciding who got to be at home for what holiday?

She voices this to Alice. 

“Oh yeah, guess I never realised how weird it must have been for them to have to see each other over holidays” 

Yet, instead of agreeing, the older woman merely scoff’s and shakes her head as if Veronica had completely missed the point. 

“No not because of that” she explains as if Veronica is an idiot “because they’re dating again-”

What the fuck.

Veronica’s pretty sure she just said that out loud judging by the look on Alice’s face. 

“Since when?” she questions, cogs already turning on her mind to try and process this information. 

“Well they reconnected about seven months ago”

That’s when Archie said they fell out of contact. 

Alice takes a pause, clearly not invested in her own childs life to know the point when she finally started dating again. 

“Oh yes now I remember, they reconnected seven months ago, but didn’t start dating until about four months ago”

Veronica quickly does the maths, she arrived back in Riverdale four months ago.

She quickly covers her mouth, feeling like she’s about to gag before rambling out a goodbye and crossing to the other side of the street back towards the bed and breakfast. 

If her vision was blurry before, she can hardly see anything at all now as tears cloud her vision and drip down her face. 

This whole time… was she just a rebound for Archie whilst he got over the fact Betty and Jughead were back together ?

She knows that Archie follows Betty on her social media and would know that they’re back together, so why the fuck wouldn’t he say something anytime either one of them was mentioned?

Unless… 

Unless, he didn’t want to talk about it because it hurt him too much to think about Betty with someone else. 

She feels manipulated, violated and most importantly betrayed… again. 

This is like her first date with Chuck, Nick’s ploy to get her to sleep with him and Archie cheating on her all rolled into one. 

She genuinely can’t believe that he’d do this to her. Look if he has genuine feelings for Betty he can’t stop that, lord knows how many times over the years she tried to quash her feelings for him with various substances, projects and bodies. But to use her, in order to get over those feelings is a line that she really thought he would never cross. Clearly she was wrong about a lot of things yesterday. 

God to think that she was going to go back and ask him if they wanted to be together again, she has never felt so humiliated or stupid in her life. 

By the time she gets back to the bed and breakfast it’s already light out and she’s so nervous that Archie is going to be up and waiting for her, luckily he’s still asleep.

she has to keep a hand clamped over her mouth the whole time she packs up her essential stuff, scared that her broken sobs will wake him up.

Half of her clothes and belongings are still strewn around the room, but Veronica figures that she can just leave a note at the reception desk stating someone will pick the rest of the stuff up later.

She’s halfway through the door, when she stops and lets herself turn around to look at him.Sprawled out, taking up all of the room on the bed, duvets only covering his lower half leaving his back fully exposed, if she looks closer she can see the hickies she left on his neck last night and decides that's the only memory of her he gets to keep. Her own hand drifts up to the side of her neck and she can feel the hickies there too, like a matching set. 

The hickies might be temporary, but the hurt after this betrayal certainly won’t be. 

And with that she closes the door and makes her way down the stairs hoping that this will truly be the last time she ever has to face Archie Andrews. 

A couple of college friends tell Veronica that she’s welcome to stay with them over the phone once she explains the situation, proud that even though a few tears did fall, she didn’t have to stop to catch her breath or let out a sob.

Turning on the radio, and met with the croon of Liza Minelli singing “Maybe this time” she lets out a harsh laugh before turning it off almost immediately and spending the rest of the drive in silence. 

She greets Megan and Olivia at the door and thanks them for letting her stay once she reaches the apartment, they try and persuade her to go out clubbing, demanding that the only way to get over someone is to get under someone else, but this just makes her cry harder as it’s the exact method Archie used to well, use her. 

Instead she sits and unpacks all of her crap into the spare bedroom and climbs into the bed, not even caring that the thread count is 10 times what it was back at the Bed and Breakfast wondering how soon was too soon to set a wrecking ball onto Pop’s diner. 

Veronica wakes up to darkness, a loud banging on the door to the apartment and a damp pillow after she had cried herself to sleep. Groaning, she rolls over to the other side and pulls the satin covers over her head hoping that whoever it is will go away. 

A few minutes later and it’s clear that the banging noise isn’t going to stop, figuring that either Olivia or Megan had forgotten their keys, begrudgingly getting out of the bed and shuffling to open the door Veronica prays that they're not completely wasted and even more so that they’re alone.

The last thing she wants to deal with right now is either a drunken room mate or having to hear said drunken room mate have drunken sex through the walls whislt she sits in a bare empty room with it’s white paint and clean shelves trying to fix her broken heart after being betrayed by her high school sweetheart for the second time. 

Being in the centre of NYC there’s a dozen different locks on the door, and Veronica spends a few minutes fumbling around with them before they’re all opened, she swings open the door ready to ask her room mate if they’d forgotten their keys. Instead she is stood face to face with someone's sternum, and when she tilts her head upwards she is of course met with Archie. 

Her first instinct is to shut the door in his face, her second is to slap him but when she truly looks at him he’s stood in the doorway chest heaving, fists clenched and he honestly looks more of a mess than she does, which is saying something. 

The atmosphere is silent, all noises of new york city traffic, argumentative neighbours and city wildlife melt away as if everyone of her senses focuses in on him. 

His hair is unruly, sticking up in every different direction like he’s spent the last 12 hours running his hands through it, his lips are chapped (clearly from biting) and she swears that there are tears in his eyes threatening to spill.

It could’ve been seconds, minutes or hours that they just stand staring at each other, Veronica only takes the tiniest of steps backwards when Archie pushes his way into the apartment and starts pacing through the kitchen. 

slowly , she closes the door. Scared that even the slightest of noises will set him off, he looks like a crazed wild animal stalking through the apartment, but Veronica doesn’t become truly worried until he stops in his tracks completely and finally opens his mouth, and points his finger at her, she notices how much he’s shaking. 

“You left me” his voice cracks. 

She hates hearing him in this much pain, and she has to force herself to remember that this was his fault though, he is the one that caused their downfall, in terms of their friendship and also the potential for a new relationship. 

“Why did you follow me?” she replies, jaw clenched and back ramrod straight desperate to try and convince him that she has any sort of control over the situation, her voice may not waver but she already knows that her eyes have given everything away. “You clearly weren't supposed to follow” 

“Yeah I guessed that Veronica” God, the only time he ever seemed to be sarcastic was when they were arguing and he felt the need to get defensive.

“How did you even know that I was here?”

“I rang some people” 

She thinks back to the conversation she had with Cheryl a few weeks ago about the two of them taking a trip to New York, and that she knew some girlfriends that would be happy to accomodate them. 

She shouldn’t be surprised, Cheryl Blossom had been meddling with their relationship since day one when she shoved them into that closet at Thornhill.

Veronica scoffs and shakes her head, kicking herself for not realising earlier that Cheryl would be the first to tell Archie where she ran off too. 

Archie, clearly thinking that the scoff was aimed at him retaliates “After what you’ve just done to me Veronica I don’t think you have the right to ridicule me , I’ve made some mistakes but this is a new low…”

She nods, expecting him to apologise for exploiting her like that. 

“You can’t just have sex with me… and, break my heart because I broke yours four years ago and think you’re justified for revenge. It’s not fair Veronica” he can’t meet her eyes as he speaks choosing to look at his battered converse instead, tears freely running down his face, dripping onto the tiled floor. 

Normally she’d see him crying and want to fix it, or wipe away the tears - but right now she’s furious. 

How dare he have the audacity to insinuate that she’s the heartbreaker in the situation, when he’s the one who lied and betrayed her. What does he have to be heartbroken about? He’s probably just upset that he’s going to have to wait a while to receive his paycheck for fixing the diner now. 

She tries to brush him off, and moves around the apartment, wiping down already pristine surfaces and tucking in chairs just to make herself look busy and distract her hands from making their way into fists, determined to make it look like this is just a casual conversation for her and not the most difficult situation she’s ever been put in, like he hasn’t just ruined the friendships they've been rebuilding for the past four months just so he can try to get over Betty.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t really see how I’m the heartbreaker here-”

He’s quick to interrupt clearly have already rehearsed what he wanted to say “You had sex with me, fell asleep next to me, but when I woke up you were gone, and I’ve had to follow you to New York to get any answers.” 

That was the difference between the two of them, and the reason she guesses that they worked so well as a couple but could never get the stage before quite right, never fun and flirty but always tense and angst ridden.  
At the first sight of conflict Veronica would run, get out of there before things got messy and keep her guard intact. Archie however, would follow these he cared about to the end of the earth, even if they tried to push him away at every step- just like she always did. 

They’d switched positions now, Archie had his back to the front door, whilst Veronica was standing opposite one of the marble benches in the kitchen, she’s so glad that the apartment was open plan, needing as much distance as possible in between herself and Archie.

Honestly, she hadn’t even thought about the fact he would’ve woken up in her room alone with most of her stuff gone, sun blaring through the slatted blinds, but the other side of the bed cold. Yet, the thought of him sleeping with her in an attempt to get over Betty makes her feel so disgusted, at herself, but at him too. To the point where she struggles to look at him now, and it reminds her of why she was so desperate to flee this morning.

“Sorry” she sneers “that I didn’t come greet you with breakfast this morning like some Betty Draper 1950’s housewife, I was too busy being disgusted with myself”

Her hand shakily comes to cover her mouth, and she immediately regrets what she’s just said. 

Archie looks like she’s just slapped him across the face, cheeks red not from the cold but from embarrassment, and lips quivering as he whispers “being with me, disgusts you?”

“No, no, not all” she stammers whilst placing her hands out in front of her like she’s trying to lay out the truth. It’s true, being with Archie doesn’t disgust her at all, but under these circumstances it sort of does.

She swallows the lump in her throat, she needs to say this to him with clear conviction “but when you use me as a rebound, I don’t feel too good about myself no.”

“Rebound?” he spits. His voice is getting louder and there’s more of an edge to it “Who are you supposed to be a rebound for Veronica? I haven’t so much looked at anyone since you came back to Riverdale, and I wouldn’t want to. I thought… I thought I didn’t have a chance I thought I could just be your friend, but then last night happened and I don’t think I have it in me to just be your friend”

He lets out a stuttery breath and tentatively takes a step forward 

“Veronica I love you. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped loving you” 

Her eyes flutter close and she lets the tears fall, and suddenly she feels like an 18 year old girl again. The two of them alone confessing their love to one another underneath a tree, the moonlight and glare from a flashlight illuminating them so that their silhouettes are the only things to be seen in the dark landscape. 

Just like then she’s also fucking terrified, and admittedly a little confused. The situation makes no sense, even if he did sleep with her because he truly has feelings for her, why wouldn’t he mention to her that Betty and Jughead together, more importantly how could he still find it so easy to lie to her and withhold secrets from her. She can’t have their relationship start on the basis of a lie, and she certainly can’t start one if he’s still harboring feelings for the girl-next-door. 

Frustrated, she shakes her head trying to rid all images of Archie and Betty from her mind “It doesn’t make any sense” she splutters, Archie might have calmed down but by this point Veronica is just getting started. 

“If you didn’t have feelings for her, why wouldn’t you tell me they were back together?” her breaths are uneven and she struggles to get the words out in between her sobs “ I won’t let you claim me as a second class consolation prize because you couldn’t have her”

Archie’s eyes are wide, and she can tell that he’s starting to get worried she’s going to start hyperventilating or go into a full blown panic attack. 

He takes another step forward, she takes one back in an attempt to increase the distance between them, but her back ends up hitting the workbench. She’s trapped. 

“Ronnie…” he says so earnestly that Veronica is surprised that she even heard it amidst all of her sobs “ Who are you on about, because I can tell you now, that the only person I want to be with is you” 

“It’s betty” she says, throwing the information out like its deadweight “ I bumped into Alice this morning” mumbling, she tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear “And I was told that Betty and Jughead got back together four months ago” her breathing starts to return to normal, but she still finds herself taking big breaths in between the words “coincidentally the same time that I came back to Riverdale, and I guess that my mind just went to the worse place possible and jumped to the conclusion that you knew, and that you befriended me, and slept with me at an attempt to go over it”. She presses the back of her hand to her damp eyes, in an attempt to dry them. 

Veronica also realizes that if Archie truly didn’t know before that Betty and Jughead were dating again, he certainly does now. This has the potential to completely fuck things up all over again.

Slowly moving her hand away she opens her eyes, a small part of her expecting Archie to be halfway out the door ready to go find Betty and confess his love for her. She’s happy to find that in reality, he’s moved closer to her and she has to tilt her head up again to see his face, which is grinning from ear to ear. 

“Why are you smiling?” she laughs, trying to supress the smirk on her own face. 

Shrugging, he holds his arms out, which she gladly steps into. He wraps his arms around her waist and rests his chin on her head before admitting “I don’t know I guess… I’m just happy for them”

She presses her face further into his shirt when she asks “So you’re not in love with Betty?” 

He pulls away so that he can cradle her face with his hand, and she gasps a little at how cold it is. 

His thumb is tracing over her bottom lip as he confesses “No, not now, not ever” she hates the sight of him crying and the fact that she is able to finally reach up and swipe them away makes her heart soar.

“ When I kissed her, and then we attempted to make something out of it after, it was just my stupid way of wanting things to go back to a simpler time. Because you have to admit the things we went through in high school were, well they were shit. And I guess in my confused incredibly stupid mind I thought that if I was with Betty that things would maybe go back to how they use to be, a lot less dangerous and honestly a little boring. But Veronica, I would much rather relive all of the craziness of four years ago with you, than have a mundane white picket fence lifestyle without you, okay?”

“Okay” she nods. 

“Okay” he whispers leaning in.

HIs lips gently brush against hers before Veronica takes charge and kisses him back fully.

Her tongue slips into his mouth and they make out lazily for a few minutes, until Archie leans forward and presses his hands into the back of her thighs to help lift her onto the bench. Veronica moans in the process, this angle allowing them to be level height. As she gets situated on the bench she smiles into the kiss and starts to tangle her fingers into hair, now wanting the space between them to be minimal. 

His hands sneak their way under her sweatshirt and trace idle patterns there with his thumb, causing her entire body to erupt into shivers and goosebumps, she draws him in closer by wrapping her legs around his torso and pulling forward, his hand drifts from her hip before resting on the inside of her thigh, and she feels her core pulsing, desperate for more contact. 

She’s about to tell him so when he starts biting down on the hickies he left last night, they’re already a little tender so Veronica finds herself panting and failing to keep the noises of moans at bay. 

He stops sucking on the hickies to mumble “wanna make them permanent” against her neck, and she can feel the vibration of his voice against her sternum.

She pulls away from him, much too Archie’s chagrin if the petulant look on his face means anything to laugh “territorial much” she replies whilst looking at him and stroking the side of his face.

Letting out a sigh, Archie admits “just making up for lost time”

Veronica nods in agreement, before leaning back in and whispering in his ear “why don’t you take me to the bedroom then Archiekins” 

She tightens her legs around his waist as he lifts her off the counter as she directs him to the room she’s staying in. They only make it halfway down the hallway before Archie is pressing her against the wall. Both of them groaning at the increased friction, Veronica’s head goes to roll backwards, but she ends up smacking it off the back of the wall they both look in shock and burst into laughter, Archie repeating “sorry” as he presses kisses to the top of her head, before moving to press them all over as she scrunches her face up, the chaste kisses extremely ticklish. 

It’s nice to have sex this casually, naturally. Fun and enjoyable rather than broody and angsty Veronica realizes. She’s sure they’ll be times where it I s like that but it’s also good to remember that sex is supposed to be something you can enjoy. 

They finally make it to her bedroom door, which Archie kicks open. He also makes a point of turning the light on this time, and the fact that he can easily hold her with one arm, turns Veronica on even more. 

He carefully deposits her onto the bed and Veronica quickly grows cold with the lack of contact, she’d ditched the sweatshirt in the hallway leaving her in nothing but a sports bra, chest heaving and breasts nearly spilling out of the cups. She sits up slightly, weight resting on her forearms and head cocked to the side as she waits for Archie to come back to the bed, eyes slowly raking over his body as he takes his shirt off by the back of the neck and undoes his jeans. 

She’s a hundred percent certain that her eyes darken at the noise he makes when his erection is finally free from the restriction of jeans. 

He comes back to the bed and starts kissing his way down her body, stopping to scrape his teeth over her nipple and through the bra, which harden in the process and this time she lets her head roll back onto the bed, turning her face into the pillow to stifle the moan. 

She expects him to continue, but it's a few seconds later when she squints open one eye and seems him staring and blinking at her left rib cage 

“Is that a Neruda quote?”

She smacks her hand over her eyes, embarrassed to be as exposed as such a cliche, Archie’s fingertips start trailing over the cursive absentmindedly as if he’s trying to say the quote to her 

“The great roots of night  
grow suddenly from your soul,  
And the things that hide in you come out again”

“What does it say in spanish?”

“De la noche las grandes raíces crecen de súbito desde tu alma,y a lo exterior regresan las cosas en ti ocultas” she replies 

“Who knew you were such a romantic Ronnie?”

“Shut up!” she cries, shoving at his shoulder playfully as they both laugh. 

He ends up resting his head on her stomach as she cards her fingers through his hair, her stomach muscles clenching as he places random kisses there. It’s another few minutes before his kisses start going lower again, over her tan hipbones and down to the inside of her legs, so close yet so far from where she wants him. 

He drags her leggings off, pressing a kiss to the inside of her calf and pushes her lace panties to the side, she whines and starts to rub her legs together, desperate for him to do something, anything when he parts her folds.

The first swipe of his tongue has her scrambling to hold onto the bed sheets, overwhelmed with the sensation of Archie between her legs applying just the right pressure. She tries to speak, to tell him how good it is but all she can manage to say is “shit”, “fuck”, “Archie” and she thinks she manages a “right there” but she’s honestly not too sure. 

Her core is tightening and her toes are curling as she welcomes that feeling of heat forming at her very centre. 

She’s close and her hips involuntarily buck upwards causing Archie to lay his forearm across her hips to pin her down, and it’s not 30 seconds later that she’s pushed over the edge. 

He continues to lick through her aftershocks and she has to pull him away afterwards, too sensitive for anything else. He crawls back up her body, she thinks he’s about to lean in and kiss her again when he stops, about an inch from her face and deadpans “you know you still have to pay me for fixing the diner, even if we are dating”

Veronica thinks about replying with an equally sarcastic remark, but instead flips them over so that she’s on top, hands braced on the headboard, and decides this is a much better way to get him to shut up. 

* roughly three years later*

She’s rushing through the Andrews living room, which just so happens to be her home now too, when she accidentally kicks a stack of Archie’s music sheets scattering them around their floor. 

This certainly did not help Veronica’s already frustrated and stressed mind. 

Letting out a grunt, she gets to her knees and starts scrambling to pick up all of the paper, she spent for ages getting all of the wrinkles out of her dress, only for it now to be probably just as wrinkled and covered in dog hair. 

She’s proud of Archie following his passion of music and knack of helping others to start teaching music at Riverdale High, she really is, but he was still just as unorganised as he was at 18 meaning that the stuff he needed to grade was always all over their house- it drove Veronica up the wall. 

“Babe, what are you doing?” Archie asks as he jogs down the stairs and stops in front of her, offering his hand and helping Veronica to her feet. 

She hastily wipes down the navy dress, slightly less stressed now that she knows the rewrinkling was minimal, and slams the papers in her hand onto the couch. “I was picking up your mess, and ruined my dress in the process” she can hear the slight shrillness of her voice but she’s quite frankly too stressed to care. 

“Okay” he nods, hesitating before continuing “ that’s not exactly the end of the world, we still have plenty of time to reiron your dress before the party” 

She huffs, he’s clearly not getting the point.

“No we don’t, I have to get to the diner and go through all of the decorations to make sure they’re perfect, our daughter will only have one first birthday, it needs to be worth remembering. Are you sure pink for a girls birthday isn’t too tacky, because we could-”

He stops her rambling by placing his hands on her shoulders firmly, before one of them drifts to tilt her head up so she’s forced to look at him “1. Please breathe, you're scaring me 2. No pink isn’t tacky and 3. Even if it is I highly doubt Faith is going to be mad if the decorations aren't to her standards- she’s a baby Veronica.” 

She lets out a sigh and regains her composure “yeah you’re right, I just feel a lot of pressure, for everything to go right today you know, so many of these people haven’t been in the same room in six years”

“I know, believe me I know” he chuckles “my mom and your mom in the same room at any time is enough to make anybody tense, but it’s gonna be fine. I’m gonna go grab the balloons and put them in the car, you’re gonna go and wake the birthday girl from her nap and then we’re gonna get to the diner- okay. Good” he leans in to press a quick kiss to her forehead before he leaves heading towards the garage for the said balloons. 

Veronica climbs the stairs and quietly goes down the hallway, not wanting to wake the baby up suddenly. When she opens the door to the nursery she finds that Faith is already up, standing and clearly trying to escape from her crib, big brown eyes staring up at Veronica, a smile forming on the little girl's face at the recognition of her mami. She may look mostly like Veronica, but her eyes, her eyes are all Archie’s

“Hey mija” she exclaims as she picks up the baby and settles her on her hip. She delicately swipes some of the child's jet black hair off her forehead before pressing a kiss there, and another one when Faith responds by snuggling in closer. 

Her and Archie had never even discussed the prospect of children when Veronica fell pregnant, only a few months after they’re one year anniversary. She told him on a random night, just the two of them sat on the couch, his head on her lap as she stroked his hair, Casablanca playing in the background, when she decided it was the perfect time to tell him. They both cried when she announced it, Archie more than her, the movie immediately forgotten as he began brainstorming baby names, Veronica vetoing pretty much all of them. It was probably one of the most mundane nights in all of Veronica’s life, but at that point it was definitely her favorite, and only replaced by the birth of their daughter on an early October evening, the change in the leaves as they browned matching the change in Veronica and Archie’s life as they became parents. 

Quickly she changed her from the powder blue baby grow she had on for the charcoal pinafore they had decided on for the party and grabbed the Louis Vuitton bag full of all the baby stuff off the floor, next to the wooden crib and began descending the stairs. Faith’s little chubby fists scrunching the neckline of her dress, Veronica clearly not caring about the amount of wrinkles it would leave. 

As she walks out the door towards the car, looking towards Archie trying to stuff all of the balloons in the trunk rather ungracefully, she’s overwhelmed with the sensation of just how much she loves him and also how new it seems, like they’re still in the honeymoon phase, despite being together for over two years and parents for one. She hates to admit it, but their relationship had become complacent by the end of senior year. They were naive and thought that nothing could break them. If they could survive through serial killers, gargoyle kings and murder plots against multiple friends, then surely they could survive anything the normal world could throw at them. But knowing what it is truly like to live without Archie Andrews in her life for four years and the realisation that things can get in the way of their relationship and break it, makes every second she has with him, with their family all the more special. 

10 minutes later they pulled up to the driveway of Pop’s diner, Veronica immediately confused as to why the lights were on, as her and Archie were supposed to be the first ones to arrive in order to give all of the decorations a final check. 

“Archiekins” she questions, leaning over from the backseat, not liking Faith to be in the back by herself “Why are the lights turned on in the diner? Because if it’s an attacker I’d rather know first, so I could leave faith in the car whilst I go chase them out, nothing is stopping this party from running smoothly” 

He slowly turns the engine off, and turns to face her “don’t get mad” he starts and Veronica’s alarm bells start ringing immediately, Archie’s surprises, whilst normally heart felt and adorable, is the last thing she needs right now “I told Betty and Jughead how to get into the diner so we could meet up and talk with them first. I would have told you but you were already so stressed” he confesses, whilst taking the hand that was resting on his headrest and pressing kisses to her knuckles. 

Veronica slumps back in her chair, Faith gurgling and writhing in the car seat, clearly sick of being in the same place for a grand total of ten minutes, her view of the world and her parents obscured by the car seat. 

“As much as I hate to admit it, that was a smart idea”

She’d orignally wanted to be at least three glasses of moet down before having to face Betty and Jughead for the first time in six years. They had missed coming home to Riverdale for Faith’s first Christmas due to some conflict at work, and when they came back for the summer Veronica, Archie and Faith had taken a trip to California to see Hermione, they were like passing ships in the night she supposed. Today was supposed to be the first time she saw either of them, and the first time that they would see Faith, and whilst Veronica had wanted it to be in a crowded room with loads of other friends and family as well as slightly tipsy, she also admits that “reuniting” in a more private place was probably a better idea, despite the potential awkwardness. Especially considering the last time she saw Betty she was confronting about her kissing her boyfriend, and the last time she saw Jughead she had just had extremely mediocre sex with him - gross. 

Veronica gets out of the car and opens the boot of the volvo to get the balloons whilst Archie gets faith out of the car, she closes the boot and watches as as Archie carries the baby towards the entrance of the diner, nodding enthusiastically and agreeing to whatever she is trying to speak to him, most of it baby talk but she can hear a few real words in her speech like “mommy”, “down” and “doggy” before like the utter child he is, he blows a raspberry to her neck, causing faith to giggle in excitement at all of the immature things her daddy likes to do. 

Watching Archie play with their daughter is probably Veronica’s favorite sight, and a one she doesn’t think she’ll ever get tired of. She’s so infatuated with looking at them with their matching dorky grins and smiling at each other. Whilst Archie throws a look back at Veronica when he opens the diner door trying to see if she’s ok, Faith grabbing his face in an attempt to turn it back towards her, hating when her daddy’s attention is on anyone but hers. The sight of it almost makes all of Veronica’s anxiety dissipate completely.

As soon as they get through the door however, Betty is jumping out of the booth and rushing to see them, Jughead trailing behind her. Betty nearly knocks Veronica over when she reaches her and gives her a hug, squeezing so tight that Veronica can’t breathe, but she immediately returns the hug anyway. When they pull apart Veronica’s heart clenches at how much Betty has changed, her hair is a lot darker now, free of the iconic ponytail and a lot closer to brunette. Her style, whilst still classic, has changed a lot. Gone are the sweater and peter pan collars and replaced with a blouse and pencil skirt. 

She looks over to Jughead, who is bent over and at eye level with the baby , also nodding along to her babbling like they’re discussing Tarantino’s merits as a director when she realises that Jughead hasn’t changed at all. Like at all, he’s still wearing that stupid beanie too. 

She looks at the beanie in almost horror, before glancing back to Archie. Archie is also looking at her with a shocked look on his face, letting his eyes quickly switch to the beanie and returning to Veronica’s once more, clearly trying to indicate to her how ridiculous it is that he still has the hat. 

Jughead, seeing the two of them trying to silently discuss his taste in accessories whilst Betty compliments all of the renovations to the diner, interjects. 

“I wore the hat ironically… I promise I don’t wear this thing everyday”

Betty then pipes up “I did have to stop him from trying to buy Faith a version of it so she could have her own though, so count your blessings”

Archie shakes his head and looks at Jughead like he’s insane “Dude” he laughs whilst bouncing Faith on his hip, “if you bought my daughter one of those hats, I honestly think Veronica would have you chucked out of this place, and I don’t have the power to stop her”

Veronica rolls her eyes as the boys laugh, and it’s at this moment that Betty actually remembers that there’s a baby in the room. She then quickly ditches her to go over to Archie and ask if she can hold the baby, Veronica would be mad, but she also understands she’d ditch anyone to have the chance to hold Faith too. 

Betty’s holding the baby, letting her grab onto her finger with her small fist, whilst the other one holds her up on her hip. She looks between Veronica and Archie with a grin on her face when she comments “she’s really beautiful guys” she looks towards the baby now and raises her voice an octave “just like your mom yeah, good job you don’t look like your dad, mhm” putting her attention back onto Archie and Veronica she adds “and what a beautiful name too”

“We wanted to honor Fred” she replies as she moves across the entryway to where Archie is, he holds out an open arm for her, she steps into it and rests her head on his chest as his arm snakes its way around her torso.

“Yeah, but there was no way Ronnie would let me name my daughter fred” she’s quick to agree to this sentiment “so we settled on the same initials” he’s looking down at her now, so earnestly that she can't help but twist slightly to reach up and kiss him. 

Jughead reaches over to Betty in order to shield Faith’s eyes and deadpans “Hello there’s innocent eyes here” they break apart, both of them glaring at him when he adds “God, somethings really haven't changed since high school, still clearly into PDA I see” .

“Speaking of high school similarities” Veronica interjects “do you guys want to grab a booth?”

Faith is passed back to Veronica as they choose the booth right in the middle of the diner. Betty and jughead on one side, Archie and herself on the other - the way it's supposed to be. 

The time doesn’t seem to pass as they sit and talk at the booth, so wrapped up in catching up with her friends that she doesn’t notices the clock ticking down and all worries about a perfect first birthday party leaving her mind. 

She listens as Betty and Jughead update them on their lives, all the travelling they do as journalists, Jughead’s new hobby of photography, the work they’ve done to help deprived schools like the one at southside so that the kids have a better chance at education that Jughead was lucky to get. Meanwhile, Faith is sitting on Veronica’s lap, grabbing on to her hair, desperately trying to eat it, and slobbering all over her in the process. They all laugh at how adorable it is and this is when Archie interjects that their resume is a lot less impressive, with most of it being taken up by the diner renovation and Faith. 

“Excuse me pureheart the brave, don’t sell yourself short.” she interrupts passing Faith to Archie so she can lean forward to tell both of them that “Archie is the music teacher at Riverdale High now” 

“That’s great Arch, not going to lie but I’m much more of a fan of music playing Archie than boxing and construction Archie, a bit more pretentious but a lot less of a douche” Betty hits him on the shoulder for that but Archie doesn’t reply, he’s too busy bouncing faith on his lap and blowing on her hair trying to get her attention. Once again he’s a giant child.

“Yeah you’re going to have no luck getting his attention now, she’s got him wrapped around her extremely tiny very chubby little finger” she replies 

“Like mother like daughter” Betty interjects leaning back “ You know Veronica you’ve had Archie completely enraptured with you ever since you first walked into Pops and asked how the onion rings were” she turns to Jughead “ I was literally in the middle of a conversation with him, and he just completely spaced out and ignored me whilst she came over” 

Now Veronica is the one who’s not listening, she thinks back to over two years ago when she saw Archie for the first time again, completely and utterly confused as to why he was asking her how the onion rings were, she can’t believe how much of a sap he is remembering what the first thing she ever said to him was. There’s also a very small part of her that wishes it was something a little more suave than fried food, but the fact he still remembers is sweet. 

She’s taken out of her daydream when an alarm on her phone goes off telling her she has 5 minutes before guests start arriving 

“Shoot” she says as Betty and Jughead give each other a funny look, clearly finding it amusing that Veronica’s has to omit all cursing from her vocabulary within the past year “people will be arriving soon, and I still need to put out the final decorations. We will finish this conversation though” she reprimands using her stern mom voice whilst pointing at Betty and Jughead. 

She then turns toward faith, smoothing down her curls, a futile attempt to try and fix the damage that Archie had made. 

“Your Auntie Cheryl is going to be so mad that she wasn’t the first one to see you on your birthday princesa” 

Faith apparently finds this hilarious, and starts uncontrollably giggling. All four of them agree that messing with Cherry is pretty funny. 

Before Veronica gets up to do the final check of decorations, she lets herself take a second to admire all she’s built in the past two years. Her eyes sweep over the diner, with its hanging terrariums and marble countertops, Archie got his way and the back wall is black and white tiles. There’s also plenty of photos of the three of them around the place as well as ones of Fred, and Mary, there’s even one of Pop Tate. She then lets her eyes focus on Archie, Faith is already restless after being sat at the booth for fifty minutes, so Archie is drawing patterns on her arms in an attempt to keep her entertained, whilst the other rests on her leg, his palm covering almost the entirety of it. He clearly feels her looking at him, and looks back at her, she feels a little bashful being so clearly caught reminiscing, and her face starting to heat up not wanting to be called a sap. Instead Archie continues looking at her for a second or two before winking and looking back towards Betty and Jughead who are bickering about which one of them would be Faith’s favourite. Veronica, not being able to stop herself after being gifted with the view of Archie’s side profile, kisses him on the cheek before resting her chin on his shoulder. 

Finally, as she looks out to Betty and Jughead smirking at the way they’re mimicking each other and the way she can feel Archie laughing at them due to the way his shoulders are moving, she hopes that she can add the friendship between the four of them to the things that she has managed to rebuild.

**Author's Note:**

> So there we go, if you managed to read all 29k of this I am extremely impressed and also incredibly grateful. It would also mean a lot to me if you could leave kudos and a comment/ review (I am seriously always willing to talk about Varchie with anyone) you can also come talk to me on my Tumblr: Gertesyorkes 
> 
> I watched a shit ton of community s3 and the Nora Ephron rom-coms during the two week process of writing this, so there's most likely some references or influences in there. 
> 
> Also you can blame the season final of Brooklyn nine nine for the whole of the cheesy epilogue, seeing Jake and Amy with their baby has made me incredibly broody I am not going to lie. 
> 
> (Also fun fact, one of the first things I decided on in this pic was the baby's name being Faith, purely as a dedication to Fred Andrews, before I realised that my middle name is also faith)
> 
> I feel like people also tend to list the music that they listen to whilst writing the fic, I'm personally not a massive fan of listening to music whilst writing- BUT I did listen to these artists a lot whilst drafting and planning: 
> 
> 1\. Anything by Kelsey Lu  
> 2\. Anything by Flowerface  
> 3\. Wolf Alice- especially don't delete the kisses 
> 
> once again would really appreciate any spare kudos or comments :)


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